June 9th, 2009
The 'incredible' growth of the Mac
Apple rarely directly addresses the size of its installed base. In its financial reports, Cupertino will talk up units sold and the percentage of growth. But to rally the troops at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, the first flag raised was of Mac growth.
Phil Schiller, senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, took the stage, telling the crowd that there were many reasons for the excitement and anticipation surrounding the developer conference. One big one could be seen in the chart projected behind him.
He pointed to a chart showing the first 5 full years of Mac OS X, from 2002 to 2007 which went from about zero installed base to about 25 million.
Of course early on right after the release of Mac OS X, much of the growth was the transition from the Mac OS to Mac OS X. However, since the introduction of the Intel-based Mac hardware and the rise of the Apple Store, sales have picked up. And then there’s the “halo” effect from the iPod and the collapse of Microsoft’s Vista transition.
However, Schiller didn’t go into details. He wasn’t offering a history lesson.
“It shows great, steady growth of adoption of Mac OS X — this isn’t shipments, it’s actual active users,” he said simply. “But something incredible has happened over the past 2 years,” he continued.
In an animation, the scale of the chart suddenly shot upwards, from the 25 million top, and like a skyscraper, shot to 75 million in 2009. So, over the past two years, the installed base of Mac users has tripled.
Of course, these are the customers of the gathered developers’ software. The installed base is an important number to this group.
I was encouraged about this figure. I have understood that Macs have been growing but it’s not often that the incremental unit reports are put together to let us see the big picture. The chart drew a big round of applause. This was something that Mac developers needed to hear up front.
There has been some concern in places in the recent quarters with a decrease in sales statistics compared with the previous year. Some of this was a decline in net Mac sales — according to the last 10K filing from late March.
On the other hand, Mac unit sales increased by 3 percent in the first half of fiscal 2009. (And in case anyone thinks that Apple isn’t a computer company anymore, Mac sales totaled 35 percent of the company’s total profits, the report said.)
A reminder from the 10K report about the importance of Mac developers’ confidence:
With respect to its Mac products, the Company believes the availability of third-party software applications and services depends in part on the developers’ perception and analysis of the relative benefits of developing, maintaining, and upgrading such software for the Company’s products compared to Windows-based products.
This analysis may be based on factors such as the perceived strength of the Company and its products, the anticipated revenue that may be generated, continued acceptance by customers of Mac OS X, and the costs of developing such applications and services. If the Company’s minority share of the global personal computer market causes developers to question the Company’s prospects, developers could be less inclined to develop or upgrade software for the Company’s products and more inclined to devote their resources to developing and upgrading software for the larger Windows market.
The Company’s development of its own software applications and services may also negatively affect the decisions of third party developers, such as Microsoft, Adobe, and Google, to develop, maintain, and upgrade similar or competitive software and services for the Company’s products.
Mac OS X Leopard, which became available in October 2007, includes a new feature that enables Intel-based Mac systems to run Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. This feature may deter developers from creating software applications for Mac OS X if such applications are already available for the Windows platform.
David Morgenstern has covered the Mac market and other technology segments for 20 years. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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