U.S. PC Shipments Down 6% in Q4 2011, Apple Up 21%
U.S. PC Shipments Down 6% in Q4 2011, Apple Up 21%
Posted 01/11/2012 at 4:36pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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It appears that PCs are just not the hot gift idea they once were. According to Gartner, U.S. PC shipments were down almost 6% in the fourth quarter of 2011. Apple, however, continues to grow its market share with sales up nearly 21% in the same time. This pushes Apple to the number 3 spot in the U.S. computer market.
Still far in the lead are HP and Dell, which have 23% and 22% of the market respectively. Apple’s overall market share is 11%. Lenovo’s sales actually grew by 40%, but it sells so few units in America that it did not figure in the top tier of makers. Apple is the only manufacturer in the top five that grew at all.
Apple’s good fortune can be accounted for partially by its retail store presence, but also by its marketing an brand awareness. The general affluence of the U.S. market is also involved here. Apple did not make the list of top world-wide computer manufacturers.
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MrHorspwer
January 12, 2012 at 7:13pm
Wow. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good excuse.
Directly from the Gartner report. You can find it here:
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1893523
"Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad.
Source: Gartner (January 2012)"Specifically: "but NOT media tablets such as the iPad."
As for those of us who build our PCs. We don't even make a small dent in an industry that sells 92,000,000 units a "bad" year. Besides, how many of those are outright new builds and not upgrades? Putting a new engine or transmission in a car doesn't count it as a new car sale. Buying a new mobo and processor doesn't count as a new computer sale.
acidic
January 12, 2012 at 11:21am
just like jimmythestu said, pc sales are so low because they dont take into account all parts sold that build machines. of course the apple fanboys are gonna raise a huge stink about their big 11% market share. too bad that reported number is WAY off and counts ipads as computers. apples true marketshare is at a 15 year high of 5% as reported just last month and most of that is due to them having to donate macs to schools in order to get that high of a number. i suppose i can let the isheep think this is all real to make them feel better about themselves and their beloved image, err i mean brand
Engelsstaub
January 12, 2012 at 11:12am
I knew, the moment that I read this story's title, that the ensuing comments would be entertaining.
jimmythestu
January 12, 2012 at 4:51am
It also doesn't count those of us that build our own box. I have never bought a PC. I always built it. I had to buy the Macbook so my company wouldn't have any liability for me using a Hackintosh on company time. What was the count on motherboards that went out that were not RMA? Or better yet motherboard CPU combos that were sold. Ought to tell you something. Sales of straight up PC's can be misleading I think.
Holly Golightly
January 11, 2012 at 10:02pm
Wow... That right there, is some depressing news. It is hard to believe that Mac computers are suddenly selling so well. There is nothing new. The only thing new from Apple is the iPad... Which is selling like crazy, but if we are going to claim the iPad as a computer, then we have to count the iPhone and iPod Touch as computers too. Which they are not. They run under the same mobile OS and the hardware does not offer the same connectivity you find in a regular desktop or laptop. I see the iPad as a big cellphone. Anyhow, back to the subject... I really feel that the truth is being distorted again.
FrostyWinnipeg
January 11, 2012 at 11:49pm
11% of the market is where Apple has been for 20 years +/- 1.
Not a big surprise.
cownaetion
January 12, 2012 at 4:53pm
It is actually lower than the 11% reported. The problem is they are reporting the amount of units sold per quarter (or whatever time interval they chose). The first day they reported Apple's marketshare was 10% was misinterpreted but never corrected. As someone mentioned above, they ARE counting all iPad's as computers. The number for desktop/laptop machines is certainly lower.
On another note, the 21% is still a BS figure. Its easy to get high percentages when your starting numbers are low (i.e. the numbers jump from 100 to 121, 21%).
bjoswald
January 11, 2012 at 6:57pm
People are probably just sick of Windows. It's everywhere, it's been everywhere, and people want something new. Macs "just work"; no defragging, antivirus, or any other annoying upkeep. Word of mouth goes a long way, and it only takes a couple of good reviews from people to motivate other people to buy them.
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
January 12, 2012 at 5:04am
And what happens when something in one of those miracle machines breaks? It costs 2-3 times the repair price of a comparable PC.
Over-hyped trendy trash.
Hey.That_Dude
January 11, 2012 at 10:24pm
I have Mac friends who love thier mac's... right up until they don't work because of a virus or something else. Low and behold, the apple "technitions" never fix them properly. Two of my friends caved in and bought new mac after they were told that they needed to "upgrade" after the tech admited he couldn't find the problem. My other friend left them for the PC. Guess which one of the three hasn't gone back to get thier computer fixed in the last 10 months.
That's my word of mouth.
Hey.That_Dude
January 12, 2012 at 9:59pm
No. Apple just needs to train techs and stop using foxconn for the hardware (one of them was definately a bad board not that the tech would ever admit/realize).
Nailer669
January 11, 2012 at 7:05pm
That's why we get a bunch of Macs in with viruses on them at the computer store I own. It's just a bunch of smoke and mirrors, and people are dumb enough to believe everything they hear/read. Mac OS X does what Windows 7 does... defrag automatically. Apple crap is damn sexy, but it is just a computer. They are all just computers.
And are they counting iPad sales in this PC figure like they like to do?
Deanjo
January 12, 2012 at 5:25am
Remind me to never bring a system to your shop. It is obvious that you have no clue what you are doing. OS X does not "defrag automatically". The difference is in the write strategy and as such HFS does not fragment nearly to the same extent as NTFS. In fact no *nix file system fragments near the same extent as NTFS and you will only have some fragmentation on a *nix filesystem when the system cannot find a contiguous space large enough on the entire partition to fit the data. This is very different then the MS filesystems strategy of "dump as soon as you can, where ever you can and sort stuff out later when idle".
LatiosXT
January 12, 2012 at 9:12am
Er,
Fragementation is typically the fault of the OS, not of the file system. The file system just tells the OS how to format the bytes. It's up to the OS where to write those bytes. *nix OS's use the algorithm of "Don't write to recently freed space". Windows uses "write anywhere there's free space."
Although I wonder how this works with SSDs, since fragmentation is a moot problem.
Nailer669
January 12, 2012 at 5:43am
Hee hee... I don't work on them. I just looked them up on the internets and believed everything I read, and according to Apple support, it does. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375 SKITBM!
Deanjo
January 12, 2012 at 8:08am
Note that I did not say that they did not get fragmented. They do when lack of contiguous space is available (read as your harddrive gets close to full). Fragmentation will happen on any filesystem when that happens or else you would be getting disk full errors as soon as there was not a contiguous space large enough to store the data. Read the notes in your own link, it is explained right there. Again this is very different then MS's "dump now anywhere and fix later" approach.
Mac OS Extended formatting (HFS Plus) avoids reusing space from deleted files as much as possible, to avoid prematurely filling small areas of recently-freed space.
Please refrain from further commenting on subjects you clearly have no clue about.
AntonioGarrison
January 11, 2012 at 6:15pm
Because people who buy Apples are morons. They should get a computer that restrics them in every aspect that a PC should not restrict you. Build your own Apple PC with the best hardware, HAHAHAHA, never going to happen. Suck it.
jbwhite99
January 11, 2012 at 5:06pm
Lenovo is barreling in on you! And with cool new products like Yoga, are gunning for the top spot.
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