Apple Up, Windows Down
Gartner: PC sales down in the US last quarter, Apple Macintosh sales up. Here are the numbers:
In the U.S., PC shipments totaled 17.5million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, a 2.1 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2011 (see Table 2). Due to the tight inventory control and preparation for the Windows 8 launch, most PC vendors were able to ship Windows 8 PCs to the retail space. However, PC sell-through was rather weak which leaves some level of inventory concerns for vendors in the consumer market.
Mac’s US market share is now up to 12.3%. Not bad for an OS that spent years selling in the low single digits. It looks like Windows 8 hasn’t done much to inspire new PC sales.
What’s driving the PC sales decline? In a word, tablets. And Apple still owns half or better of the tablet market. I’m starting to think yesterday’s WSJ report really was overblown.
Apple’s doing well in what is certainly a down market, but eventually the Mac will eventually be hurt by the overall down market in PC sales, because the idea of having a big honking computer in the home with a boatload of computational power and disk storage is going away. Mac sales will eventually be cannibalized by tablets just like PC sales are. For the Mac to thrive, Apple will need to bridge the iOS/Mac gap.
In addition, what I found interesting is that Lenovo’s market share was up significantly, and a big part of Lenovo’s strategy is the laptop that doubles as a tablet. I think that the concept has a lot going for it. Tablets are just not suited for productivity, and the average laptop or PC isn’t as suited for the quick and casual browsing of content that you do with a tablet.
I wonder if part of the problem might be that Windows 8 is primarily geared for the home experience and isn’t very well suited as a business workstation.
I helped a friend get some files and other stuff from his old Windows laptop to his new Windows 8 laptop. What a disaster. We spent the better part of 3 hours with it and it was one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had with a PC. It may not be very good for business, but it isn’t worth a hoot for home users either. If Microsoft doesn’t do something before my home computer is ready to be replaced, I’ll be buying a Mac. Windows 8 reeks.