Posted on 12/03/2009 11:54:11 AM PST by Star Traveler
By Neil Hughes
Published: December 3, 2009 - 09:20 AM EST
Apple is predicted to continue its gains on the rest of the PC market in 2010, with Mac sales projected to grow by 26 percent while the industry is forecast to see a 16 percent year-over-year increase.
If the predictions of Robert Cihra, analyst with Caris & Company, prove true, it would give Apple a total 4 percent market share for the 2010 calendar year. Cihra goes into great detail on his analysis in a note issued to investors Thursday morning. Due to Apple controlling its own product cycles, as well as pricing, he believes Mac units will grow at a rate of 1.6 times faster than the entire PC market. On average, the Mac has outpaced the PC market as a whole by 1.8 times over the last 12 quarters.
With just a 4 percent projected total market share in 2010, the Mac still has "considerable headroom" for gains, Cihra said. He believes the company is still the single-best stock investors can buy in the PC market.
"As the most (in fact only) innovative, highest-value (hardware+software) and profitable PC vendor, we estimate Apple having earned a Mac [average selling price] of $1,289 in CY09, down 10% [year over year] but still representing a premium of 1.8x vs. its Wintel peers," the report said. "Even more meaningful, we estimate Apple Macs generating a gross profit-per-unit of nearly $340, which is 2-3x our estimate for its peers, keeping us focused on AAPL as the single best PC market investment."
Caris & Company reiterated its recommendation to buy AAPL stock, and has maintained a price target of $260.
The report also noted a "brutal" erosion of the PC average selling price in 2009, dropping an estimated 16 percent year over year. Portable machines alone were said to have dropped more than 20 percent in price, driven by the popularity of low-cost netbooks.
In this respect, major PC manufacturers like HP are finally catching up with a trend originally achieved by Apple way back in the second quarter of 2007: notebook prices are dropping below desktop prices, as portable machines have become the new "mainstream" PC. Cihra said the first quarter of 2009 was the first time that HP's notebook average selling price dropped below that of its desktops, nearly two years after they had flipped for Apple.
Cihra expects the overall PC market to increase between 15 and 20 percent in 2010, with his current forecast at 16 percent. The report said that signs of turnaround in the PC market are showing, though the economy remains the wildcard in forecasting PC sales for next year.
In September, Apple again significantly outpaced the rest of the PC market, growing 16.4 percent globally year over year, while the market as a whole grew 2.3 percent. Due to Apple's premium-priced products, the company has a worldwide revenue share of about 10 percent, while its market share hovers just north of 4 percent.
Apple has been projected to sell 2.9 million Macs for the final, fourth quarter of 2009. The company's September 2009 quarter proved to be its best ever, with sales of 3 million Macs helping the company's profits rise more than 46 percent.
Apple sales going “gangbusters”... :-)
Now Apple has 4% of the market. They should have 90%. But they force the customer to buy their hardware to run their software. That keeps Bill Gates the richest man in the world.
He doesn’t care who makes the box that runs his software.
Steve Job is like a liberal. He keeps doing what doesn’t work.
if everyone has a Mac, what will the Star Bellied Sneetches do to feel smug?
Hold on! They’re talking “projected growth”...
Also, I’m not entirely clear about this report, but I read another report saying that Apple’s income from sales was up more than Microsoft.
One basic reason for that is that Mac computers are a LOT more expensive for what you get. PC prices drop, but Mac prices don’t. Yes, you get more for a buck than you did ten years ago with both systems, but Apple continues to be much more expensive for what you get.
Now Apple has 4% of the market. They should have 90%.
Actually, it's about 9-10% of the U.S. market. It's been growing fairly dramatically.
In fact, Apple reported (Steve Jobs did...) that the sales of Macintosh in the Apple Stores is more than 50% of the sales being to new Macintosh users (having used Windows PCs before their purchase of Macintosh).
Besides that kind of "movement" for the general population, I'm seeing a lot of hard-core computer geeks going over to the Macintosh. The reason why is that they can run Mac OS X, Windows and Linus, all on the Macintosh hardware... :-)
In addition to that, Apple Macintosh is run virtually 100% of the software out on the market (maybe a very few exceptions that I don't know about.. :-) ...). In fact, many users like it that they can run their Windows software, right on the same desktop that is running Mac OS X and all the Macintosh applications. You can't even tell that the Macintosh hardware is ... LOL...
And it's much better to be at 10% of the market and have lots of growth left to go to 90% -- rather than -- being at 90% and nowhere to go but down, down and down -- like Microsoft is doing... :-)
Hold on! They’re talking “projected growth”...
It's the same thing that has been happening for a number of years in the "historical growth" for Apple... so it's a "no-brainer"... LOL...
So the idle rich and their college-age children continue to have more money than sense. Good for them, and Apple, for making their fashion-driven status purchases.
At this rate, Apple will have a majority of the market in, what, 2109?
Yes, you get more for a buck than you did ten years ago with both systems, but Apple continues to be much more expensive for what you get.
Well, as it turns out, when you actually look at it, that's not true. When you compare the systems together, same thing for same thing -- they're not more expensive...
I'll leave it to Swordmaker to provide those details on those comparisons, as he's done that several times in the past. I've seen the details, but I just don't have them at my fingertips like Swordmaker does... :-)
Give him time to notice this ping, and I'm sure he'll post it here for you...
Thanks Swordmaker...
If apple created a product like psystars Rebel EFI, and sold it for a premeium ($100) to allow installation of snow leopard, they would eliminate windows within 2-3 years. And sell more of thier “premium” systems than ever.
if everyone has a Mac...
Well, the nice thing about being in the 10%-of-the-market category for computers, the Apple Macintosh has a lot of room for growth. That's a lot better than the Windows operating system, which has nowhere to go but down, down and down... LOL...
And for Apple Macintosh, they've been growing steadily right along and picking up new Windows users all the time, who are sick and tired of the old crap that they've been dealing with over the years.
No worry about "everyone having a Mac" right now... that's coming in the future... There's still time to grow and that's good; that gives Apple plenty of potential for the future, a very good thing for Apple Macintosh users...
If apple created a product like psystars Rebel EFI, and sold it for a premeium ($100) to allow installation of snow leopard, they would eliminate windows within 2-3 years. And sell more of thier “premium” systems than ever.
You're not talking about a sales model that Apple will ever use. Their sales model is based upon integrating hardware and software, with hardware being the core of the business. The software is there to sell the hardware.
Now, many people may think it's all in the software, but Apple thinks that it's "in the hardware" with the software giving that "value" to the hardware. That's the way Apple thinks about it and that's how their entire "sales model" is configured.
You can get that information from many different interviews from Steve Jobs. He's the driving force and has been for a long time, and you won't see that changing, no matter what other people think.
And since Apple is quite successful and growing dramatically at the present time, no one is going to be asking for a different sales model for Apple... :-)
Well Apple will continue to go up as long as Jobs is around. But with his history of pancreatic cancer and recent liver transplant, that isn’t probably not a long time. So all you need to do is time the sale just right. I say buy low, sell high.
Apple is pulling in the high end of the market which isn’t 100% of the market. Apple equipment costs double PC with similar specs. As long as they can keep coming up with equipment outside of desktops/laptops (like iPhone) they will do well. Of course to come up with those ideas you need someone like Jobs. There is no #2 close.
The habit of pumping up projected growth numbers is been going on in most companys for a long time. The last thing you want to do is interject common sence into a board meeting when everyone else there is blowing sunshine up the CEO’s A$$.
If you know anything about Apple, you'll also know that Apple has a long-term habit, in the past all the way up to now... of blowing past projections and doing better than anyone predicts... :-)
What you say may be true of a lot of corporations, but Apple actually does it... over and over again, in blowing past all predictions.
That's why they're the darling of Wall Street...
well, sure, overall profit is probably higher, but overall sales is the big number.
Why on earth does apple bar people from using their own hardware? I would never buy apple just because of that.
Apple equipment costs double PC with similar specs.
See post #10... someone will be coming along with the figures to show you that you're operating under a false perception of the situation... :-)
Why on earth does apple bar people from using their own hardware? I would never buy apple just because of that.
Ummm..., you may not know this... but Apple "sells hardware" and they use software to supplement the hardware at either give-away prices or for free... :-)
So, with Apple being a "hardware company" it doesn't make any logical sense to have their software support another company's hardware... LOL...
That should read
“why does apple bar people from using other people’s hardware”.
DOH!
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