Writing for the San Jose Mercury News, Jon Fortt noted that Apple seems to be ” holding its ground ” with market share, but hasn’t seen the upward swing many within and without Apple would have hoped a year into Apple’s “Switch” ad campaign.
The news comes from three different market research firms: Gartner Dataquest, NPD Techworld and IDC. Apple remained stagnant at 2.3 percent of the worldwide market, according to Gartner Dataquest and IDC, while NPD Techworld showed that Apple’s U.S. consumer marketshare stayed between 3 and 4 percent. Dell, meanwhile, hopped up from 30 to 37 percent of the U.S. consumer market, and gained ground in the worldwide PC market from 15 to 18 percent.
Apple sold fewer systems but made more money because the computers it did sell were higher-margin systems like PowerBooks. Profits fell, though Apple’s sales rose to their highest marks in 11 quarters.
The Mercury News article noted that Apple still has strong opportunities left in the educational market, despite a swing towards Windows PCs in recent years. And Apple’s iTunes Music Store offers a lot of hope for the future, too — the venture was close to break-even performance at the end of its first full quarter of operation, according to Apple CFO Fred Anderson, who spoke with analysts last week. And it’s bound to grow in leaps and bounds later this year when Apple unveils a Windows-based version of iTunes, too.