Monday, May 19,2008 @ 5:00pm
Apple market share at 66% in premium PC bracket
Apple's overall market share for computers sits at around 14-percent, but when narrowed down to only contrast sales of higher-end PCs costing over $1000 – since only the venerable Mac Mini typically costs less –that number skyrockets to 66-percent. eWEEK's Joe Wilcox writes that the NPD analyst group discovered that as the PC desktop market is down about 25-percent, with laptop sales flat, Apple has seen 45-percent growth in desktops, and 50- to 60-percent growth with portables.
Wilcox notes that Windows Vista is not entirely to blame, with Microsoft recently claiming the next-generation OS has sold 140 million copies. The news also defies typical retail logic, since bargain-basement pricing is what normally attracts buyers to brick-and-mortar retail locations – where NPD received its data.
Apple's retail stores, as well as the iPod-iTunes ecosystem, are helping to create an end-to-end system, where customers are only arms-length from Apple if they need assistance.