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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Friday, March 05, 2004

How will Apple grow?

Geek.com: "I've been pondering Apple's future growth after Apple became debt-free on February 16. While CFO Fred Anderson and Corporate Controller Peter Oppenheimer look to make Apple into a US$10 billion company again, I wonder how they intend to get there with such a small percentage of the computer market. According to Gartner, PC vendors will ship 187 million units in 2004, up almost 14% from 2003. Looking at Apple's CPU sales--around 700,000 to 800,000 units a quarter, or just over three million units for the year--Apple won't gain much ground."

Umm..... they won't gain any ground, actually. If these numbers are true, they will continue to lose ground, as the company has done every year since Steve Jobs took over. Given the best-case for Apple (800,000 units a quarter, or 3.2 million units for the year), Apple will sell just 1.7 percent of all computers in 2004, compared to 1.88 percent for 2003. But that's the best case. It will certainly be lower.

"I'd like to see it take its old 'Think Different' slogan to heart and aggressively move forward to break from the debated 3% marketshare of computers."

There's no debate (indeed, Apple executives are still using the bogus 5 percent figure). Apple's market share is 1.88 percent today, and as your own math showed you, it will be 1.7 percent or lower in 2004. Why is this so hard for Mac advocates to understand? The Mac market is ending. Let's hope Apple has broader consumer electronics plans than just the iPod.

[ Posted at 1:47 PM | Permalink ]