for those who don't know him, Paul Thurrott is a sycophant for
Microsoft. He likes to find any excuse to sling mud at Apple for the
delight of his fans (and of course for the pleasure of MS.) Recently on
his website, he was displaying the
market share numbers for computer sales. This, of course, shows
that Macs are only a small part of overall PC sales, and that is
supposed to put us in our place. Mac sales are growing, but the remain
only a fraction of the market.
To the best of my knowledge, Paul is correct about Apple's market
share. But if this is true, why has Apple stock price gone up
2000%?
No, that's not a typo. Hewlett Packard and Dell sell five-to-six
times as many computers, yet their stock price is so-so. Are all Wall
Street investors just a bunch of mindless Mac loving zombies? What does
Apple have that HP and Dell lack?
Do you see that little dip that happened at the end of 2007? That's
when the recession news hit hard and investors started selling off. The
Mac hating websites used that dip as an excuse to start beating up
Apple for not
being successful enough.
That was a bad time for short-term investors, but in the grand
scheme it was nothing more than a blip.
Thurrott is so nice that he has been displaying Apple's low market
share for the years
2007,
2006,
2005, and 2004. Let's pull those numbers together and see how they
compare to the stock market trend.
2004 2005 2006 2007
Mac Sold 3.22 4.74 5.66 7.76
Increase 32.0% 16.1% 27.2%
PC Sold 174.00 208.00 234.00 270.00
Increase 16.3% 11.1% 13.3%
From 2004-2007, worldwide PC sales increased 155% - not bad for an
industry. Macs increased 237%, which is 82% more growth. I would have
to say that the growth of Mac sales is incredible. Most companies that
have high growth suffer a lot of growing pains and generally screw
something up.
Truthfully, the growth in Mac sales has been overshadowed by sales
of iPods, iTunes, and now iPhones. Apple managed 237% growth on Macs
while at the same time dominating a couple of other markets without any
big problems. That is what investors like - fast growth, and especially
the potential for much more. Every year that Apple has managed 30% or
more growth, their stock price did the best.
How will Mac sales look if 30% growth can be maintained? for
comparison we'll be optimistic and assume that PCs continue at 15%
growth.
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Mac Sold 3.22 4.74 5.66 7.76 10.09 13.12 17.06 22.17 28.83
Increase 32.0% 16.1% 27.2% 30.0% 30.0% 30.0% 30.0% 30.0%
PC Sold 174.00 208.00 234.00 270.00 310.50 357.08 410.64 472.23 543.07
Increase 16.3% 11.1% 13.3% 15.0% 15.0% 15.0% 15.0% 15.0%
Mac/PC 1.9% 2.3% 2.4% 2.9% 3.3% 3.7% 4.2% 4.7% 5.3%
It looks like we'll have Thurrott's message of small market share
for years to come. Even as Mac sales doubles every three years, there
are still going to be a ton more PCs sold. Neither Vista nor XP are
going away any time soon, and Microsoft will be making billions of
dollars from all those suckers who buy PC crap.
Still, there's no reason to despair on the Mac side. A company
growing at 30% each year will not be going out of business as long as
they keep tight controls on costs. Lucky for us and investors, Steve
Jobs is a skinflint. He's hired some very capable people to make this
happen. Investors, who as a group don't care about Macs vs. PCs, find
plenty of news to be positive about Apple.
As Thurrott could see if he bothered to look at his own numbers,
growth in Macs is a lot more interesting than for PCs.
So, Mr. Thurrott, I hope you enjoy XP and Vista, because you and the
rest of the PC world are going to be stuck with them
for the next 2-3 years at least. You can bet that Apple will have
many new things for Microsoft to copy as Leopard matures and Apple
readies for the next cat. Apple is proving to be the more agile company
with many new products fueling growth.
The billion dollar question isn't if Macs are going to grow at 30%,
it is the possibility for even high growth rates as Vista continues to
get bad reviews and users start looking for an alternative.
Disclaimer: This individual does own Apple stock as well as Apple
computers. 
