Numbers: I’ve always said you can’t trust ‘em. I mean, look at 2: all shifty-eyed and curvy. If you ran into 6 on the street, would you follow it down a dark alley? I don’t think so. Pegging Apple’s exact market share is a mug’s game, but you can derive some useful information from it. Take, for example, the latest sales estimates from market analyst firms IDC and Gartner (full disclosure: IDC and MacUser are related in a convoluted fashion, as of the European royal families of the Victorian period. Call them distant cousins.).
According to Gartner, Apple’s market share in the third quarter of 2007 stood at 8.1%, up from 6.2% in the same quarter last year. IDC, meanwhile, estimates that Apple’s holding 6.3% of the market in the quarter, up from 5.7% the previous year. The exact numbers are not important (and honestly, how could they be, if they seem so different from each other?). What is worth taking away is that both agree that Apple is growing. IDC says the year over year growth is 15.9%, while Gartner puts it at 37.2% (wowzer). In comparison, the next most growth came from Toshiba and HP, both of whom were pegged around 16% by both companies. Meanwhile, both Gateway and Dell experienced negative growth.
The important thing to remember about market share is that it’s not a win-lose situation. Apple doesn’t need to control the majority or even a plurality of the market. What’s important is that they continue to sell computers and sell them well.
The problem with market share analysis (as I keep saying, and I'll say it some more) is that most of the time people talk about the wrong market.
In the markets in which Apple competes, their market share is as much as 50%.
Steve Jobs puts it best in his 2003 Rolling Stone interview. I advise anyone who hasn't read it to do so.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939600/steve_jobs_the_rolling_stone_interview