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Apple capture third place in retail PC sales

Apple Inc., once a bit player in the PC retail market, has been clawing its way up the retail ranks, thanks in part to strong consumer brand name reception.  DailyTech recently covered its gains in the notebook market, which it was last reported to be in seventh place in.  After passing Toshiba earlier this year and continuing strong growth, Apple has now cracked the top three, passing Acer for the first time to join Dell and HP among the retail elite.

Apple's Q2 2008, ending in June saw almost 1.4 million units in sales over the three month period, according to research firm Gartner.  The metrics reflected a rise of 38 percent over last year's shipments.  Dell and HP also saw more modest growth.  Dell grew 11.9 percent to retain a leading 5.25 million units shipped, while HP grew a modest 5.6 percent to arrive at 4.167 million units shipped.

Acer continued to struggle, with sales sinking more than 20 percent, aiding Apple's ascent.  Toshiba saw little change with only slightly over 2 percent growth, also working to Apple's advantage.

As a whole, U.S. PC shipments rose 4.2 percent over last year, despite a troubled economy.  In total 16.5 million units were shipped.

Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner's Client Computing Markets group offered commentary on the changes.  He stated, "Dell continued to be the market leader with PC shipments accounting for 31.9 percent of the U.S. market in the second quarter of 2008.  Apple's PC shipments grew 38.1 percent in the quarter. The home PC segment continued to be the strongest driver for Apple, as well as sales into the education segment."

More conservative research business IDC placed Apple in a tie for third with Acer.  It showed Acer growing 49.9 percent, but pointed out this is only thanks to the merger with Gateway.  If both companies' marketshares were combined for last year’s metric, IDC says Gateway/Acer actually dropped nearly 28 percent in units shipped from last year.

Apple still has yet to crack the top five in global PC shipments, behind fifth place Toshiba, with 3.14 million units shipped in the quarter.  HP and Dell flip-flopped for the top spot.  While HP was second place locally in the U.S., it seized the top spot worldwide.

Worldwide shipments showed an impressive growth of 16 percent over last year.  Mr. Kitagawa wrote, "Mobile PCs continued to lead unit growth across all regions as the average selling price (ASP) of mobile PCs declined sharply relative to desk-based PC ASPs.  Economic uncertainties have hit PC revenues, resulting in steep ASP declines, especially in markets such as the United States and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region."

Within the U.S., Apple continues to find a way to establish strong positions in new markets, such as the cell phone business, which boost its other business sectors by a "halo effect".  However, in the P.C. market, Apple is facing some image problems as it tries to crush Mac clone maker Psystar.

Apple maintains tight controls on its operating system and hardware, which some people like.  Apple CEO Steve Jobs bears an especially intense malice towards Mac cloners and has gone to great lengths to legally destroy them.  This and the tight controls some fans say is smart business, but many others have viewed the policies of late as increasingly dictatorial.  Nonetheless, Apple continues to eke its way to more marketshare in the U.S., though still a distant third behind Dell/HP.

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Uhh
By borismkv on 7/17/2008 2:34:25 PM , Rating: 5
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Apple is clawing its way away from the bottom. They're no where near the top. Toshiba had over 100% higher sales. Dell and HP, I'm sorry, did not have more modest sales increases. The actual numbers for Dell's increase over last year is 500,000 units. That is almost *equal* to Apple's increase if not greater. The rough result is that, guess what, Apple isn't really gaining any traction at all here.




RE: Uhh
By BansheeX on 7/17/2008 2:47:33 PM , Rating: 5
Not to mention the fact that it's disingenuous to compare Apple sale numbers to individual Windows OEMs rather than cumulative Windows PC sales. They don't get to claim third just because they don't have allow a bunch of third-parties to sell Apple hardware and break up their hardware sales numbers across a laundry list of OEMs.


RE: Uhh
By Icelight on 7/17/2008 3:05:47 PM , Rating: 5
But taking that in to account would not make for such a Micktastic article.


RE: Uhh
By JasonMick (blog) on 7/17/2008 4:16:27 PM , Rating: 1
I wouldn't call my statements disingenuous by stretch. Because people are so wont to to criticize any article that vaguely can be interpreted as pro Apple, I put in plenty of language to express EXACTLY what I'm trying to say.

For example, the closing paragraph, and closing sentence for that matter should be the part that most sticks in the mind of an avid reader who actually reads the whole article.

The closing sentence states:
quote:
Nonetheless, Apple continues to eke its way to more marketshare in the U.S., though still a distant third behind Dell/HP.


That leaves little ambiguity to the fact that Apple is far behind HP and Dell. And further I clearly say that a second source places it in a tie with Acer, though it would be easy to just say it passed Acer based on the Gartner metrics if I was interpreting the data in a biased fashion.

I don't own a Mac and don't know why some commenters seem to think I like Macs. Aside from aesthetic (visual) aspect of the design, which appeals to some, the only advantage I can see any Apple products having is that the Air is the thinnest notebook by some estimates (though others beat it in consistent thickness) and the iPod currently holds the title for the largest memory capacity (for the 160 GB model). For that reason I own an iPod, my one and only Apple product.

Past those justifications, seems to me you're buying a brand name, which isn't something I think is very smart or would do personally.

I won't deny I like competition. In any market. But I won't be going and buying a Mac myself anytime soon unless they were to do unlikely things like adopt competitive prices with Dell/HP and somehow adopt a gaming ready graphics API that would work with modern PC games. As neither of those seems likely to happen, I'm pretty unlikely to buy a Mac.

I think DailyTech is better than most tech sites as we do have highly savvy and critical readers ... so don't stop giving feedback.

BUT don't waste your time whining about how much I like Macs or how you wish me and my Mac didn't love Apple so much as you're just spewing nonsense. I've said this before, and people seem to get it ... for about 2 days. I don't make the news, I just report it.


RE: Uhh
By Pirks on 7/17/08, Rating: -1
RE: Uhh
By retrospooty on 7/17/2008 6:44:46 PM , Rating: 5
And the same is NEVER true in reverse is it? When anything posted negative about Apple you never whine about it do you?


RE: Uhh
By Pirks on 7/17/08, Rating: -1
RE: Uhh
By Pirks on 7/17/08, Rating: 0
RE: Uhh
By Pirks on 7/17/08, Rating: -1
RE: Uhh
By retrospooty on 7/17/2008 9:01:39 PM , Rating: 5
I dunno... No offense meant, but you do appear here in nearly every Apple article agresivly defending every Apple product on every issue raised. Anyone on the other side of your point would just as easily call you a "whiner" as you called them above. Notice when its against you, you say its about "lies" being spread about Apple, and when its about MS, its just the "whiners" ? I see a double standard here.

+ don't worry about typos, just get your point across. =)


RE: Uhh
By Pirks on 7/17/08, Rating: 0
RE: Uhh
By Pirks on 7/17/2008 9:59:51 PM , Rating: 1
Also, I have no idea why you associated whiners with MS. I mentioned two classes of disturbed Apple bashers here, whiners and liars (Reclaimer77 is a good example of a liar, and borismkv is a good example of a whiner), and both are related to Apple only. No "MS whiners" was mentioned by me, okay?

BTW if you wanna know an MS whiner, I know only one for now, and he's actually gone from this forum for a long long time. What was his nick? Comitpal I think... and he was also posting here under the second nick, BeenThere. Here you go, now I'm sure your "double standard" itch has totally gone, now isn't it? :-)


RE: Uhh
By retrospooty on 7/17/2008 10:37:16 PM , Rating: 2
Yup... and he also 3rd nick, cornfedone... but I wouldn't call him a whiner, he is somewhere between a troll and a raging psychopath LOL!


RE: Uhh
By mikefarinha on 7/17/2008 6:01:22 PM , Rating: 2
Mick,

I wouldn't take it too personally. It seems to have become a kind of expectation when you do an article about Apple. If you did an article with a bias against Apple I'm sure that people would still claim you're a closet Apple-lover and make snide remarks to that effect.

The way I see the problem is that Apple, Steve Jobs in particular, comes off as being uber-trendy, condescending, paternalistic, and holier-than-thou. Thus any one consecutively writing anything positive about Apple starts to partially take on this image.

Just my thought.


RE: Uhh
By MeTaedet on 7/17/2008 9:57:47 PM , Rating: 5
The news that you are "just reporting" concerns various companies not just Apple, so why is it that the body of the article and the headline are phrased in terms of Apple and its progress? Instead of writing an article apprising the reader of the markets position and share of various companies neutrally, favoring and highlighting no company over others, you've written an article comparing Apple and its well-being to other retailers and companies, which suggests that Apple is on the forefront of your thoughts and that the subject of the article is Apple even though there's no objective and sensible reason for that - and, to me at least, it suggests that you have some interest in promoting Apple's success, perhaps monetary.

And the headline! I'd like to bring particular focus to that: "Apple Claws Its Way Closer to the Top in Retail PC Sales "?! Firstly, it's a bit sensationalistic what with the word "claws"; has a very dramatic quality to it, but this is a minor complaint. Secondly, the headline implies for some readers, no doubt, that Apple will EVENTUALLY be at the top, or that you think so, but that it's currently progressing slowly due to fierce competition. This isn't a fitting or logical conclusion; there's little reason to believe that Apple will necessarily reach the top one day. More likely, imo, it will continue to languish, always remaining second or third best and finally go out of business - as all companies must do eventually - but that's neither here nor there. Anyways, do you not see the pro-Apple spin? Really?

And while it may very well be that you do not own apple products or even like apple products - I don't in fact have any trouble accepting that this is the case - that doesn't mean that you don't have something to gain by issuing panegyric of Apple and its products, no? I mean you are always writing stories that have a pro-apple quality to them, and likewise, stories that have an anti-Microsoft spin (it's really not the case that I like either Microsoft or Apple altogether very much, so please fail to return with your wonted and truly now platitudinous recriminations of Microsoft fanboyism); is it the case that you are instructed to write about Apple (each editor seems to constrain the scope of his writings, focusing on set of only a few topics) or do you have perfect freedom to write about whatever topic you like insofar as you meet your quota and ensure that the content of your articles is tech-related. If it's the former, perhaps I can see to not begrudging you the peculiarities of your writing and the fashion in which you transmit originally unbiased information to your readers, otherwise I'm afraid I'm going to have to label you a shill yet again.

/If I were an Apple employee with a bit of company money to throw around and were keen on increasing Apple market share, I would certainly take at least a bit of interest in paying an editor at a well-known tech site with a large, largely pro-Windows/Microsoft readership to write articles with a subtle Apple bias to them.


RE: Uhh
By Ryanman on 7/18/2008 2:51:17 AM , Rating: 2
why do we care if they bloggers do sensationalist headlines? I hate Micks' pro mac stuff to be honest, but I'd click on the article even if it wasn't ridiculous like this one. Do they gain anything from more views? Not really, I'd say.