US Mac Sales Join Industry Tailspin

[Dirtyharry50]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...stry_tailspin?source=CTWNLE_nlt_os_2012-10-15

I thought some of you would find this an interesting read. I know I did, including the user comments following the article.

Personally, I think it is a combination of things including the lousy economy currently, the fact that computers have become powerful enough for many users that they do not need replacing as frequently, the popularity of tablets to replace computers in some environments and I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of at the moment.

I don't buy into the "end of the desktop" doom and gloom at all though. I think a slowdown in personal computer sales was bound to come and an economic downturn sure isn't helping things. A lot of people are probably putting off non-essential purchases.

 

[edry.hilario]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...stry_tailspin?source=CTWNLE_nlt_os_2012-10-15

I thought some of you would find this an interesting read. I know I did, including the user comments following the article.

Personally, I think it is a combination of things including the lousy economy currently, the fact that computers have become powerful enough for many users that they do not need replacing as frequently, the popularity of tablets to replace computers in some environments and I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of at the moment.

I don't buy into the "end of the desktop" doom and gloom at all though. I think a slowdown in personal computer sales was bound to come and an economic downturn sure isn't helping things. A lot of people are probably putting off non-essential purchases.

Soon... Soon Dirty Harry you'll see how wrong you are sir.

 

[GoCubsGo]

I don't think it's the end of desktops and those comments are useless. Silly article really.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

I don't think it's the end of desktops and those comments are useless. Silly article really.

I didn't think the article was silly. The guy does point out the numbers and that was what the article was primarily about.

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Soon... Soon Dirty Harry you'll see how wrong you are sir.

Wrong about what? I was just tossing out some ideas about why sales are down. Do you have some other ideas as to why they are down? It seems pretty obvious the economy is a factor and tablets are too. How is that wrong?

 

[OJ Simpson]

It's hard to beat the desktop experience.

 

[snberk103]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...stry_tailspin?source=CTWNLE_nlt_os_2012-10-15

I thought some of you would find this an interesting read. I know I did, including the user comments following the article.

Personally, I think it is a combination of things including the lousy economy currently, the fact that computers have become powerful enough for many users that they do not need replacing as frequently, the popularity of tablets to replace computers in some environments and I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of at the moment.

I don't buy into the "end of the desktop" doom and gloom at all though. I think a slowdown in personal computer sales was bound to come and an economic downturn sure isn't helping things. A lot of people are probably putting off non-essential purchases.

I didn't find it that interesting.... there wasn't much analysis at all, imho. It quoted some numbers looking at the difference year over year, without looking at the very specific reasons why a quarter's sales can be affected. Was there a big release last year in the quarter, but not this year? Looking back 4 & 8 years - do presidential elections affect computer sales?

Is the author including tablets in the sales figures? Over the past number of years there has been a massive migration from desktops to laptops. If you looked at desktop sales only, it looked like the computer biz was in big trouble. Combine mobile with desktop sales, and it wasn't so bad. Most sales figures did in fact combine desktops with laptops because they were seen as two different form factors of essentially the same machine. I believe that the same migration is now happening to tablets and other small computing devices - that also just happen to make phone calls. I believe I recall reading that if you include tablets as "computers" Apple is in fact starting to build a very large market share. We can't really compare Windows tablets yet because I think consumers are waiting to see what MS rolls out.

----

I think the other thing that is happening is that older (i.e. computers that are ~3 years or more old) can actually run what most consumers need to run. So more systems are being handed down. That is to say.... as many people are, today, getting "new to them" computers as they did a year ago. It's just that many of these computers are not "new from the factory". My wife and I tend to need more powerful systems because of the work we do. I used to keep our old systems to tinker with and for spare parts. Now we give/sell them to family and friends. And they continue to use them for a number of years because - well they don't do anything too demanding.

Anyway... it was, imo, a light article.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I didn't find it that interesting.... there wasn't much analysis at all, imho. It quoted some numbers looking at the difference year over year, without looking at the very specific reasons why a quarter's sales can be affected. Was there a big release last year in the quarter, but not this year? Looking back 4 & 8 years - do presidential elections affect computer sales?

I don't get the criticism. The article mentions the economy, difference in buying habits, it being an election year and even people waiting for Windows 8 to drop as possible reasons for the sales numbers. What I'm surprised the article didn't mention (unless I missed it) is that Apple hasn't released a new Mac Mini or iMac since last summer and the Mac Pro hasn't seen a meaningful upgrade since 2010. To me this would be the first thing to blame for dipping sales.

Overall I agree that desktop sales will continue to slide as people do more and more with laptops, tablets and smart phones. Heck, even smart TVs cut into the usefulness of HTPCs and SFF PCs.

 

[snberk103]

I don't get the criticism. The article mentions the economy, difference in buying habits, it being an election year and even people waiting for Windows 8 to drop as possible reasons for the sales numbers.

Sure ... it mentions the economy, the election year, etc... but that is just speculation not analysis. For 'analysis' it should have looked at the numbers 4 years ago and talked about the differences (or not). It could have looked at the last economic slowdown, and compared those numbers with this year. It could have looked at the last big Windows release, and compared those numbers to this year. That is analysis.... what the author did was speculate.

What I'm surprised the article didn't mention (unless I missed it) is that Apple hasn't released a new Mac Mini or iMac since last summer and the Mac Pro hasn't seen a meaningful upgrade since 2010. To me this would be the first thing to blame for dipping sales.

Yep.

Overall I agree that desktop sales will continue to slide as people do more and more with laptops, tablets and smart phones. Heck, even smart TVs cut into the usefulness of HTPCs and SFF PCs.

Yep. Putting products into categories is getting much more difficult now. We used to have phones, that did phone things. And computers that computing, and TVs that 'televised'. With all of these cross-over devices it's hard to compare what is happening today with what happened even 3 years ago.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

Whenever I read something like that article, I am always baffled. Look at the referenced graph. As recently as all of 2008, ~3.x Million Macs per quarter was fantastic, something that you could take to the bank. After the financial meltdown, the great recession, and the usual (after a deep recession), "jobless growth", Apple is selling ~5.x Macs per quarter. Tell me what for other company in what other industry would be an increase of 60% sales during the great recession be considered "challenging".

Apple as a company is obsessed with iGadgets right now, but, I have to believe that somewhere at Apple there are some accountants with who will remind top management that Macs represent a very large and very profitable business, while in the consumer world, gadgets wax and wane in popularity.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Whenever I read something like that article, I am always baffled. Look at the referenced graph. As recently as all of 2008, ~3.x Million Macs per quarter was fantastic, something that you could take to the bank. After the financial meltdown, the great recession, and the usual (after a deep recession), "jobless growth", Apple is selling ~5.x Macs per quarter. Tell me what for other company in what other industry would be an increase of 60% sales during the great recession be considered "challenging".

Apple as a company is obsessed with iGadgets right now, but, I have to believe that somewhere at Apple there are some accountants with who will remind top management that Macs represent a very large and very profitable business, while in the consumer world, gadgets wax and wane in popularity.

Because business in the U.S. has adopted an instant gratification, what have you done for me lately mindset that puts the primary focus on short term growth and seems to treat the long term health of the company as an afterthought.