As usual this kind of "marketshare" chat misses the point when trying to take a look at the entire "new computers sold" universe. It's a meaningless crock.
Apple estimates about 25 million Mac users world wide and that number has been relatively stable for quite a few years. I suspect it's been rising slowly lately with Apple's switch campaign and extended life for earlier Macs through upgrading which gives an uncharted "sideways" spread of Mac users who get "hand me downs".
Now a 25 million strong users base - especially given the demographic of the typical Mac owner - is terrific.
800,000 iMAcs were sold in the first 139 days of it's introduction - a record unlikely to be broken by any single model of any PC and it was so embarrassing that the hardware reporting group split the iMac into different colours
just to make the numbers "look" better against PC sales. The total CRT iMacs rank in the 7 million range in sales - quite a run for a model.
Apple consistently stays in the top few Computer makers in numbers and dollars based on individual company sales. If this is so why do the "overall numbers" appear low.?
What needs correcting is the "overall PC sales" number against which these kind of statistics are made.
The great bulk of new machine sales have gone to POS systems, single purpose PCs for grocery stores, retail counters, single or limited use industrial and commercial applications where Apple does not pretend to compete.
Companies that make cars and do not make trucks aren't measured by how they compete in the over vehicle market - they are measured against their peer market and who would care about the % of overall vehicle sales Mack Truck holds- the % agasint commercial truck sales is the only one that counts for them.
The % of sales in the fields Apple competes in is the only meaningful and useful number.
So Apple's performance in the education market IS useful.
Apple's performance in new consumer machines IS useful etc etc.
Because Macs have a long useful life and consistently show best ROI over time that characteristic of the computer market also needs to be weighted.
"Lies, damn lies, and statistics".....never a truer statement than looking at the Mac market.
We've been in the Mac market for 18 years and we've never seen the level of migration TO the Mac platform as in the last 6 months.