Apple competitors HP, Dell and Acer pull away from Apple as a down economy makes netbooks—smaller, less expensive notebooks—more attractive to consumers. Apple has repeatedly stated it has no interest in the netbook market.
Reports from research firms Gartner and IDC show
Apple, the company whose products are synonymous with style and
substance—at a price—lagging behind its less sophisticated, but far less expensive,
competitors Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Toshiba. This week’s report from IDC
projected Apple would take fifth place in second quarter U.S. market unit shipments, with 1.21 million units
sold. This places the company behind Dell, HP, Acer and Toshiba.
Gartner, however, gave fourth place
to Apple, estimating shipments for the quarter at 1.4 million units, to
Toshiba’s 1.1 million units shipped. IDC also estimated Apple claimed fifth
place in U.S. market share, with 7.6 percent (down from last year’s figure of
8.5 percent), placing the company behind Dell, HP, Acer and Toshiba again.
Gartner, conversely, gives 8.7 percent of the U.S. market share to Apple and
6.8 percent to Toshiba.
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One reason Apple may be struggling to gain market share
while competitors such as Acer and Toshiba (who showed double-digit gains in
market share) is Apple’s lack of an inexpensive netbook offering, which the
company has repeatedly claimed it has no interest in producing. In April, Apple
CFO Tim Cook told financial analysts during a conference call that a netbook is
“not a segment we would choose to play in.”
Around that same time, Gartner’s
first-quarter PC shipment data showed the negative effects of mini-notebooks on
the larger PC market. Worldwide, PC manufacturers shipped 67.2 million units,
for a 6.5 percent year-over year decline. However, even without netbooks, Apple
margins actually increased during the first calendar quarter, which is the
company’s fiscal second.
Mac shipments were actually
surprisingly strong during the first calendar quarter—2.2 million
units—considering how much netbooks buoyed Windows PC unit shipments,
while
sapping margins. Mac shipments into the channel declined 3 percent
year-over-year, but sales out to customers were flat sequentially.
First to second
quarter, Mac notebook units fell 22 percent and 25 percent by revenue.
Cook at
the time called Mac sales “a solid performance, particularly in this
[economic]
environment.”
However, an IDC analyst pointed out
Apple may want to think twice about staying out of the netbook market—which has
grown quickly as a down economy makes the prospect of a $500 or less portable
PC more appealing. "People are focused on $600, $700
notebooks," IDC analyst Bob O'Donnell told The Associated Press.
"Guess what Apple doesn't have: any notebook below $999."
Looks like Netbooks have peeled a little skin off Apple's revenues. The execs appear to have had their feathers ruffled over a device that consumers...
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