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Most People Who Buy Their Own Premium Computer Buy a Mac

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Macs comprise 66% of Q1 '08 retail sales of "premium" PCs.

Apple laptops have had 50-60% growth.

If you consider that people who buy above $1000 PCs retail are free to choose whatever computer they want, then most people are choosing Macs these days.

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Most People Who Buy Their Own Premium Computer Buy a Mac

By: Chris Kerins
Published: Monday, May 19, 2008
Categories: News & Commentary

OK, we know that the Mac has less than 10% of the personal computer market in the U.S., but when you look at people who are buying nicer computers the numbers are strongly shifting to the Mac's favor.

This comes from a report on eWeek discussing PC retail numbers, that is PCs sold through the retail channel like Best Buy and Apple stores. Admittedly, this doesn't include Enterprise purchases, which is organisations buying PCs for employees, or direct internet or phone sales like Dell's or Apple's for that matter. These other sales compromise the majority of PC sales.

But the two interesting things in this report is that Apple has 66% of the retail sales above $1000 in the first quarter of 2008, and that they've grown from 18% in 2006 to where they are now in 2 years. The growth rate in Mac sales has been incredible and far above the industry as a whole.

So what does this tell me? It tells me that when someone is buying a computer for themselves or their family, and they are willing to spend over $1000, buyers are overwhelmingly choosing Macs. And not just by a little: the number is two-thirds.

These are consumers voting with their own hard earned dollars. I think that is a more significant data point than the markets where the IT department decides for you what will be on your desk or what you buy when you've only got $500 to spend. These people aren't the bargain hunters. Ask Dell how serving that market is going. These are people with a more significant investment choosing what will be the computer they want to use.

I like the way this trend is pointing: most people who have the freedom to choose are choosing Macs.


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This is like saying 'most people who spend more then a million dollar on a house are buying big houses'.

NO...it's the other way around...most computers above 1000 dollar/euro's are macs.

Me
05/19/2008 at 02:08 PM

I think it also portends that people who see a Mac demonstrated are more likely to buy a Mac then people who buy stuff online. I think it is an affirmation that Apple's retail presence is working.

e
05/19/2008 at 04:14 PM

Me: How do you figure? There are exactly 5 Macs in the above $1000 range. iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, MacBook Air. There are countless other-brand PCs available for $1000 and up.

Adam Fisher-Cox
05/19/2008 at 05:41 PM

Yeah..but there are way more other brand pc's under 1000$...

Go figure "most people that buy cars above a million dollars buy a bugatti"

Me
05/20/2008 at 06:26 AM

AF-C, I understand fully the point you're trying to make: PCs over $1,000 are targeted at an absurdly narrow premium market. And as anyone who wants a Mac MUST spend more than $1,000 (apart from a mini), it's comparing a narrow premium market segment to practically the entire Mac market segment. Fair enough.

But is the premium market for PCs so narrow that Macs sales -of course- must outstrip them? And to many purchasers a Mac -is- a(n affordable) premium computer when considering more than just hardware profiles. And despite your ridiculous choice of an absurdly high price boundary for your car example, $1,000 is not an absurdly high boundary for a home computer, and it is well within the reach of many consumers.

(If a car price boundary between budget and "affordably premium" cars might be $20,000, and a typical budget PC is $600, your absurd ratio would scale to $30,000 for the boundary for premium computers. Even a higher premium car boundary of $50,000 means a higher premium computer boundary of $12,000.)

Bob Peterson
05/21/2008 at 04:47 AM

Whoops, "Me" made those remarks, not AF-C. Sorry. This feedback design reverses the usual by-line/message ordering.

Bob Peterson
05/21/2008 at 04:49 AM

My car excample was absurd, just to make my point.

Nobody is going to look for 'a computer above 1000 dollars' right? Some people are looking for a cheap computer, or some people are looking for a mac, some for a 'good computer', whatever.

Point is: If you're going to spend more then 1000$ on a computer, chances are you're buying a mac. This has nothing to do with popularity of the mac or apple, but a lot with the price of macs.

So the statistics in the article is based on numbers that are bent and twisted to come to a conclusion that is just false.

I saw a comment on another site that hit the nail on the head:
"wow! 99.9% of the computers that run osX are macs!

me
05/21/2008 at 08:42 AM

So Me, you are saying that Apple offers for sale most of the computers over the $1000 price point in retail? Really? Have you been to a Sony store? It is either that PC manufactures have abandoned that segment or Apple is outselling them. You are stipulating the former, correct?

Chris Kerins
05/21/2008 at 09:43 AM

Me: If you pay over $1000 for a computer, there is a much greater chance you'll get a Windows PC. It's simple math. There are 5 Macs to choose from in that price range, and countless PCs. The fact that The majority of users buy Macs in that over $1000 market shows that they are choosing Macs over the tons of PCs available in that pricerange. It doesn't matter if they chose to pay $1000 or not. It matters that they did, and when they were offered tons of Windows options, they said no.

Adam Fisher-Cox
05/21/2008 at 11:08 AM

NO. They didn't choose a mac AFTER they were planning to pay more then 1000$. Did you? I sure didn't.

They paid more then 1000$ BECAUSE they were going to buy a mac, and then decided they were ready to pay more then 1000$. Didnt you? I sure did!

me
05/21/2008 at 01:55 PM

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