Posted on 11/27/2009 7:30:18 PM PST by Swordmaker
All right, a new report from the NPD Group says that 48% of the retail dollars spent on personal computers in the U.S. now goes to Apple. However, that doesn’t add up to a 48%% market share by any means, because of the price of admission. But, folks, I still maintain there is no Apple Tax.
So how does Apple gain such a huge percentage of the money? Well, obviously, the average price of a Mac is way higher than the average price of a PC. Without going into the numbers specifically, the answer why is obvious: Apple won’t play in the cheap PC playground, because they don’t think it’s worth it.
You have to wonder just what Apple is thinking here and why it’s not going for the jugular in the alleged battle to the death with Microsoft, but the answers are crystal clear. Despite the fact that such industry giants as Dell and HP sell way more units than Apple, the latter makes higher profits and has loads of cash in the bank. So who can argue with that?
More to the point, with the great popularity of netbooks, it’s clear that millions of buyers are struggling to compute on the cheap. With products selling for less than $300, including a basic Windows OS license, it’s clear that the PC makers who sell such gear aren’t making a whole lot of money from each sale. They hope to make it up with volume, or perhaps entice you to customize your box and stock up on high profit extras, such as more memory, larger screens, extra software and other goodies.
Contrast this to Apple, which basically sells fully-outfitted Macs with very limited, carefully defined configurations. Yes, there is a “build-to-order” option that allows you to customize your new Mac with extra memory, a larger hard drive and a handful of other goodies, but your choices are limited. That is, other than the Mac Pro, where there are far more selections with which to cater to the needs of the content creators who are willing and able to afford expensive workstations.
But even the basic Mac mini, at $599, comes with a pretty decent bundle of software, including the latest iLife suite, plus components that may be optional on a low-end PC, such as gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. A common scheme the PC makers pull to keep prices low is to scrimp on the Windows OS licensing. Although there is but one fully-featured version of the Snow Leopard client product, there are several variations of Windows 7. Most of the time, the cheap boxes come with a Home version, but you need to buy Ultimate to unlock all the features, and that’s usually $100 to $150 more.
Apple just won’t sell stripped machines, even though I can see a need, particularly in the enterprise where some of the usual frills, such as a Web cam on the notebooks and iMac, and even Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, may not be needed for obvious reasons, such as office security. Forget the cost of the software, since it’s just a disk image that entails no extra expense for Apple when building the product.
But Apple’s main sales focus is on the consumer. Yes, that consumer may run a business, and it’s very common for people these days to want to bring their Macs into the office. There are countless stories of corporate executives taking their Macs and iPhones to the IT departments and demanding they support such gear. When the boss says do it, the IT person must say yes, even if they are wedded to the known trials and tribulations of Windows machines.
As I’ve said before, when you actually equip the PC with something comparable — or mostly comparable — to the Mac, you find the cost differences largely vanish. The Mac is sometimes a little more expensive, sometimes cheaper. PC makers are more inclined to tout instant discounts to grab a quick sale, and that’s where they might offer an added price advantage. But there’s no evidence that there’s such a thing as an Apple Tax. That was long ago and far away.
On the other hand, there is a Microsoft Tax, even though Windows fans usually can’t handle this uncomfortable truth. It comes in the form of the annual subscription fee paid for name-brand security software, and the higher level of maintenance the PC box usually requires.
Also consider the plight of the PC user with Windows XP installed. If they want to upgrade to Windows 7, which is actually a pretty decent operating system despite still being saddled with such land mines as the dreaded Registry, they are forced to do a clean install. By clean, I mean wiping the hard drive after backing up your stuff to an external drive. Microsoft’s migration utility is limited to your own documents, not applications, such it’s of little help in dealing with the real issues, which involve reinstalling all your apps and hoping all your settings will still work even if they are restored to the same location on your PC’s drive. Yes, that’s not a given.
If you can’t handle that clean install yourself, you are forced to pay someone to do it for you, or just buy a new PC. Either amounts to added expense — a Microsoft Tax. Is it even worth it? I don’t think so.
Historically, a computer is thought of as stripped or barebones if you can’t take it out of the box and use it without adding anything more than a monitor. Stripped has nothing to do with the specs of the included components. It means not having everything you need to drive. That doesn’t make it bad, it DOES make it incomplete. You can take a MacBook out of the box and use it, not so with a Mac Mini.
The first Macs, of course had an integrated monitor. The iMacs continue that tradition.
If you want to say that “Having to bring your own monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the party does not constitute a stripped product.”, you can only say that by changing the historical use of the term stripped, as applied to home and personal computers. It’s not a deal breaker for me. But even if steering wheels only cost $10, and it takes 2 minutes to snap one into your car, you could not call a car without one complete.
Monitors are such an expensive and personal part of the selection, with so many options from near the beginning on the IBM compatible side (no graphics, Hercules, CGA, etc.) that they are exempted by use, even though some type of monitor is essential.
I say this as someone who has been an enthusiast from the 8-bit days, and a former Mac network administrator and who continues to support Macs as an important (and often best) part of the computing community. The Mac Pro 2008 is an exquisite piece of work, and worth every penny. Anyone who wants to say my Dell or Lenovo is as good or better (hardware-wise) has to place them side by side and open them, and look at how they are put together.
Their statistic stinks. The article says, “. . . 48% of the retail dollars spent on personal computers. . .” and then you change it to “. . . retail sales of desktop computers. . .” and “33%” “. . . of retail sales of notebook computers. . .”
No way. Their 9.4% share is more like it, and that strikes me as including the iPhone as some kind of personal computer. It is one, so that’s confusing, if fair. Apple’s success is pretty impressive considering their competition. Their competition can pump out nearly worthless Microsoft based systems like a Chinese slave labor factory with diarrhea.
More than that,I’ve been fiddling with some video work recently and it looks like I’ll have to buy one after I get the rest of my guns out of hock.
I plugged in all that and my DSL without installing any software. Quite amazing.
From a different article on the subject, “In October, the Mac desktop ASP was $1,338, down from $1,390 in April and $1,581 in October 2008, according to NPD. By comparison, Windows desktop PC ASP was $491, or nearly $900 less than the Mac desktop.”
Apple makes a whole lot more on a per unit basis. It isn’t that hard to see how they could have 48% of revenue and 10% of the market without the iPhone. With the deferred income on the iPhone, I’m not even sure how it would count in these statistics.
Sig, I and the article are being quite specific as to what the article says. 48% of the MONEY spent to buy DESKTOP PERSONAL COMPUTERS in the United States in October at retail was spent to buy Macs desktops and 33% of the MONEY Spent to buy NOTEBOOK PERSONAL COMPUTERS in the United States in October at retail was spent to buy Macs. Those are the facts.
That is what NPD, an independent organization who analyses such statistics found when they analyzed these particular sales for October in the United States. Those are the facts.
You and ToadCode can be in denial all you want, but that is what they found.
NPD also found that numerically, Apple sold only 9.4% of all computers sold in the United States. That is also understandable because Apple's average selling price is over $1,000 while the average selling price of a Windows PC is just over $500.
Me too. The last PC I had the displeasure to install for a client who purchased it without the benefit of my advice came with THREE (3), count'em, 3, distinctly different anti-virus apps... all mutually antagonistic to each other. That was a pain. It literally took six minutes for it to start up for the first time as they argued with each other which had precedence over the other for update and scan rights.
Well, a lot of the PC warriors come to these threads to do battle over it.
Your explanation of the ease of installing Windows 7 on a PC with XP is a fine example of what this article is saying rather than rebutting it.
If a person needs an external drive for backup isn’t that a PC tax? You don’t need it for a Mac.
If a novice or non-technical person owned a PC and wanted to do the upgrade as you describe wouldn’t they need someone to help? Most have no idea what partitioning a drive even means. Aren’t they likely to have to pay for the help? Isn’t that a PC tax? It is not necessary on a Mac, unless of course you are doing the MS OS upgrade on a Mac.
As soon as someone buys a non-partitioned Win7 computer he should partition it. This can be done via control panel >>>
to admin tools>>>
computer management>>
disk management>>> then create a storage partition
Vista had the above tools too
One this is done you don’t need an external hard drive when you want to re-format or upgrade from Vista to Win7 OS.
Plus I remember seeing Swordmaker advising APPLE users to backup files before upgrading OS or installing new OS. That means you guys been an external hard drive too.... Unless Apples come with a storage partition already
Sorry. This article is just too stupid. The "Microsoft Tax" refers to the fact that in the United States it is impossible to walk into a store and buy a generic X86 computer without Microsoft Windows on it. You have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get a refund if you never intend to use it and you don't have a choice about buying Microsoft license in the first place.
If Apples were the *only* X86 PC you could buy, yes, there would be an Apple Tax.
In Manila, I can walk into any computer store and buy a computer without an O/S. Why can I not do that in the US? *That* is the Microsoft Tax.
I want a computer running some flavor of Unix. Linux preferred. I don't particularly care what distro. Mac OS X is acceptable. Microsoft Windows, any version, is not. I don't want to use it, I will not use it, I don't want to pay for it.
Be careful in your wording there. There are devoted people who run Linux on Macs too. We Linux guys are kind of in the middle.
I rationalize it as Macs are branded as Apple products and sold directly by Apple. Generic X86 PCs have no specific branding and in some parts of the world, but not others, are required to come preloaded with Microsoft Windows.
The solution is obviously for Microsoft to follow suit with Apple and only sell Microsoft Windows on Microsoft branded computers coming from Microsoft and allow Dell, etc. to sell generic PCs with no O/S.
I haven't fully thought through the Psystar trial, but I'm not liking it very much so far as it means death to independent computer hardware sources. It would be more reasonable for them to treat Psystar as a Dell and work out some kind of a deal that way.
It still doesn’t work. Apple computers account for 10% of units sold. The average computer price for an Apple desktop that NPD used for October of 2009 was $1338. The average price of a pc based system was $491. The Apple price is 2.72 times the pc price. If you adjust the average pc price to equalize it with the Apple, Apple’s share reduces to 25%. This still doesn’t make sense. Their share just isn’t that big. It’s 9.4% of units sold. Something else needs to be corrected.
PS - don’t get snide. I don’t care if you use ten iMacs or an old PS2. The numbers are not telling the whole story.
I think what you are missing is that 9.4% is an aggregate number of ALL personal computers sold in the US including desktops, notebooks, netbooks and servers. NPD's figure is citing 48% of the Revenue of only DESKTOP computers sold in the US sold at RETAIL. That excludes notebooks, netbooks, and servers AND all computers that are not sold at retail... which would exclude sales to governments, etc. NPD also reports that Apple recieves 33% of the revenue for the retail sales of notebook computers (apparently including netbooks).
In addition, someone has pointed out that apparently Apple may actually have hit 17% of units sold in October since the new 21.5" and 27" iMacs were just released.
That could be it, although I wonder if they’re selling that many servers that it distorts the total computer figures so much.
The multiple computer household numbers offer a more interesting picture. Some of these are homes with one machine for mom and dad, perhaps another machine that one of them uses for work, and then a pile of Dells for the kiddies. These are the Bic lighters of the pc world.
But the multiple machine household also includes all the people who explored the limits of the pc and decided to see what Apple systems offer. IMO this is the track for the typical Apple user. He gets a pc, moves through the more advanced systems, then decides to see why these other folks are so interested in Apple. One of the references that I read derided the claim that only 2% of households exclusively use Apple machines.
It seems to follow a typical growth through affluence path. The user starts with an old pc, like driving his parents’ old Ford, then his income grows and he gets a new Ford, then a Lincoln, then he moves into a Mercedes or BMW. This also reflects the fact that the Apple users tend to have more wealth.
Like I said, my first computer was a Mac, and I only left the platform because of software availability. Now I’m not looking forward to the investment I’m going to have to make on Apple systems, and that is a knock on the pc. PC systems just won’t fill my future needs.
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