[Dr.G.]

It would be interesting to know exactly how many people have a Mac in Canada, and what percentage of this total is made from the current number of 1147 ehMacLand members? Hopefully, I am the only one of our inhabitants who does not currently (soon to be rectified) have a Mac. I spoke to a person in Apple Canada as to this fact, and when asked where I was calling from actually knew that Newfoundland and Labrador was part of Canada, but when she tried to forward me to someone who might know these stats, I was cut off from our telephone connection.

 

[MacNutt]

Interesting thought. I wonder if ehMac is at one per cent...or five...or ten or what?

My nearest local reseller, ReStart in Victoria has some very long term Macophiles working there, and they are aware of this forum...but don't seem to participate openly.

I wonder also which Province has the most Macs per capita? There are certainly quite a few here on Salt Spring Island. It is a rather creative community, with lots of artistic types....and they (we) seem to prefer Apple products.

Anyone have any stats on this (I can hear PosterBoy firing up his iBook and saying.."I'll get right on it!")

 

[gordguide]

Interesting question, Dr G.
Worldwide Apple has about 5% annual sales of new computers and about 11% of the computers actually running (ie of any age).

Canada is not one of Apple's sales leaders; the US and Japan are. So, it seems unlikely (but possible) that there is a 5% new sales penetration here, and it follows if Apple's new sales share is 5% worldwide then stronger markets must be account for better than 5% on a nation-by-nation basis.

One of the things that stikes me when I visit the US, is the number of Macs you see in corporate settings. I have often visited a client to chat and say hello at his office, and finding Macs on the desktops is far from rare, and I'm not referring to media companies. Law firms in particular seem to use Macs more than you might think, and Medical offices as well.

I have never seen corporate Macs in Canada outside of AV/print/Internet firms, with the major exception of SaskTel. The phone company used to be 100% Apple, but switched to Intel about 5 years ago, before Jobs returned. Still, you still find them on many desktops and Customer Service centres at SaskTel.

 

[dthompson101]

Toronto is one of North Americas largest consumers of Macs. Just think of the amount of Apple Resellers. There are tons. They usually do not go out of business and there are lots of people to drive the demand for them!

 

[jfpoole]

gordguide wrote:
Worldwide Apple has about 5% annual sales of new computers and about 11% of the computers actually running (ie of any age).

Where did you get the 11% number? All the numbers I've seen (including the one from Google Zeitgeist) peg Macs at 3 to 5 percent.

 

[james_squared]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by gordguide:
Worldwide Apple has about 5% annual sales of new computers and about 11% of the computers actually running (ie of any age).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hello,

Where do you get these numbers from? Thin air?

James

 

[Heart]

I have done some traveling and Toronto might be the biggest market but ...

When in Vancouver and Alberta I see a lot more exposure and advertising in the west.

And Apple Resellers, London Drugs has to be one of the biggest chains..... on every corner (or so it seems) and most if not all carry Apple.

Posterboy may be able to verify this info.

 

[MacDoc]

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.

 

[MacNutt]

If anyone is on the leading edge of this question...it would have to be MacDoc.

I believe him.

And...to anyone out there who is interested...I seriously doubt if GordGuide has ever just pulled numbers out of thin air. He has consistently dazzled all of us with his wide range of knowledge. I know for a fact that there are a LOT of older Macs still running out there. I run across them quite often as I dabble in the graphics field.

Besides...if Gord says it's true...then you can bet that it is.

I believe him, too.

Just my 2 centavos worth.

 

[gordguide]

I have no doubt Toronto has a thriving Mac market. Unfortunately for Apple, Toronto isn't Canada.

I know many people (in business and the Federal Government) out in "Prarie Region" who are responsible for areas from Western Ontario to the Yukon, and the head office is in Saskatoon (or Winnipeg, or Regina, or Calgary). Visiting each client once will take you a month, you can forget about putting in an 8 hour day, and that's just a dozen or so clients in different cities. Ontario people are used to doing that in a week or less.

I mention that, because if you contact Apple Canada, they give you a long list of resellers here. For Saskatoon, I think I got somewhere between 8 and a dozen each time I checked.

You will be lucky to find 2 with actual product somewhere in the building, let alone on display. Outside of Saskatoon and Regina (30% of the population lives in an urban community outside these two cities) forget it. You can buy a new PC, however, in the first town you see; if you live outside an urban community, that's going to be about a half-hour drive or less.

I would hazard a guess that Apple doesn't even know their resellers won't even put an iMac on a shelf; I would be suprised if they've ever seen an Apple rep at the door. At least I hope that's the case; I would be even more upset if they knew the so-called Authorized Resellers here don't promote the product in the least.

London Drugs has helped enourmously; before that your only choice was to go to the Campus Computer Store to drool; they can't sell to the public (and finding a parking spot within 6 blocks of campus can take an hour) so actually getting a computer home won't happen from there.

When I bought my G4, two stores offered to order one for me, sight unseen. By that I mean I didn't even see a decent sized box with an Apple logo on it anywhere on the premises. Since their level of support was obviously zero, I went ahead and ordered one with a quick eMail to Edmonton. It arrived in 2 days, PST free. And this from someone who always gives a local retailer the first crack at my money.

If you ever travel to the US, most small towns and markets have Apple resellers within a reasonable distance. I had no trouble finding Macs in Little Rock, Arkansas; in North Dakota, in Wisconsin. Each of the communities I checked were smaller than Saskatoon. Am I the only guy who can't figure out why there are thriving Authorized Harley-Davidson resellers in SK towns of 10K but no Apple resellers?

My guess is, outside of Toronto, it gets quite a bit harder to find a Mac to even look at, let alone buy. Ontario may be more like the US, but don't expect that anywhere else except in the biggest 10 cities in Canada.

In fact, you can't even buy a Mac magazine in communities that service 70% of this province.

As for the stats, no they're not out of "thin air". I will try to find some links for the curious (I didn't bother to bookmark them). I can assure you they didn' come from some blogger's wishful thinking, though.

 

[PosterBoy]

I dont have the stats because I never look for them, as a salesperson i tend to focus on the computers usefulness to an individual, so while I know enough about what is going on in the market to explain how painless it ahs become to integrate a Mac intoa windows envorinment, I couldn't tell you how much market share Apple actually has. I also have read the 11% worldwide number But I'll be damned if I know where.
Google puts the number much lower, but with respect not everyone is on the net and not everyone who is uses Google or a Google service.

What I can tell you is that while my store still sells a tonne more PCs than Macs we do sell our fair share, even with a westworld opening up just up the street. iBooks sell like mad, we have just as much trouble keeping them in stock as we do Toshiba or Compaq.

My dentist uses PCs in his office, but a lot of the doctors offices nearby use Macs. SFU has an equal amount of PCs and Macs (and of course fewer Mac Technicians), and lots of students love their iBooks. People in the movie business (a rather large business in this town) freaking LOVE Apple laptops. The only two really big customers we have that don't buy Macs at all are UBC (although some people have bought them it only happens once in a blue moon) and Vancouver General Hospital. There are a few people at VGH who desperatly want Macs, but the IT dept. only supports Win98SE, WinNT4 or Win2k (not even P yet).

Writers in coffee shops I would sayat least 80% Mac users. There are a team of geological engineers who are doing a lot of surveying to do with the 2010 Olympic Bid who are using mostly Macs.

Definitly they are out there in force, and the numbers only seem to be growing. I'd end this with a clever quip, but it is far too late at night.

--PB

 

[minnes]

In looking at the friends and family homes, busineses and institutions and corporations that I have seen in my area, I almost never see a Mac being used.
In a city of 600,000 there is only one mac only retailer that I know of, and outsidfe of that store only a couple other places to find mac stuff around here
I have seen our school system and postsecondary insttitutions here go almost 100% microsoft in OS, office programs, servers etc.
I have witnessed one place go from free unix based Apache server to Microsft NT servers and it now has to shell out more money and it doesnt work any better
All I get from my friends is encouragement to dump my Mac and get a PC as soon as possible so they can share their pirated programs with me.
Bah, Hamilton is a MS sellout city.

 

[Argimou]

Interesting commentary. Question: where is Apple Canada in all of this? Are they attempting to build up market share? Are they looking for good resellers to carry, service and promote product and service? Most of the Apple shops around here (and there aren't many) want to sell used stuff along with a new iBook or so because they say there is no profit margin in new! Secondary education seems to be leaving Apple behind bigtime -- and most universities do not even support Macs.
I must qualify this by stating that I await the arrival of my new 1.25 G4 that I ordered last week. Time to replace the G3 desktop and learn osX

 

[Dr.G.]

I seemed to have unleased a controversial question upon the multitudes. Still, all have raised valid issues and comments pertaining to the use and penetration of Mac computers into our lives.

Pertaining to Argimou's point about the role of Apple Canada, I still remember calling them when I was considering purchasing an iBook a month after it's initial release, and was told that I should try Apple in the US "because we only deal with Canadian orders". The person I was speaking to at Apple Canada thought that Newfoundland and Labrador was not Canada's tenth province.

 

[jfpoole]

PosterBoy wrote:
Google puts the number much lower, but with respect not everyone is on the net and not everyone who is uses Google or a Google service.

I realize that, but I'd imagine that the percentage of people that own a Mac and don't use Google is (roughly) equal to the percentage of people that own a PC and don't use Google.

I guess I'm looking at this from the perspective of a software developer, and the number that's important isn't the number of people using Macs out there, but rather the number of people using Macs out there that are still buying software for their Macs (in which case I'd imagine the number is 5% rather than 10%).

 

[PosterBoy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jfpoole:
PosterBoy wrote:
Google puts the number much lower, but with respect not everyone is on the net and not everyone who is uses Google or a Google service.

I realize that, but I'd imagine that the percentage of people that own a Mac and don't use Google is (roughly) equal to the percentage of people that own a PC and don't use Google.

I guess I'm looking at this from the perspective of a software developer, and the number that's important isn't the number of people using Macs out there, but rather the number of people using Macs out there that are still buying software for their Macs (in which case I'd imagine the number is 5% rather than 10%).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That makes a good bit of sense.

--PB

 

[MacDoc]

Mac users typical buy more software than PC users ( where single or limited use stations are in high numbers) and use their machines for more tasks. Mr. Gates knows this. His Mac division is quite profitable.
Mac users typically were in a much higher percentage on the internet ( just look at any Mac versus PC poll and you'll see hordes of Mac users descend) altho this may well have equalized with the internet so prevalent.
Bottom line Apple has a healthy and well heeled constituency. There is some good reason for the lack of local sources as margins in high tech overall are vanishing and Apple keeps it's own margins healthy.
Apple now accounts for some 30-40% of the RETAIL sales volume of it's products because they simply could not find a way to show off their products successfully in any existing retail chain. So between web sales and Apple stores they did it themselves.
Disintermediation is a fact of life in the product chain these days and Apple has turned that to their advantage - using their "permanent Mac Expo" in their stores and the power of the web to distribute and promote new product effectively.
Apple realizes the promise of the internet but the local reseller suffers as a result.
You don't see Sony Stores in smaller centres for the same reasons. You can't read the Mac penetration from the reseller numbers. I was surprised at the Macs that came out of the woodwork in the northern tip of Cape Breton when I was there for a couple weeks and word spread MacDoc was around. It was fun getting some of the earlier Macs running well again.

As to reseller participation on this forum, for some of the reasons mentioned above resellers tend to avoid places where their Mac clients might actually learn to save money

Even with our low overheads it's tough to stay alive these with margins so low in hardware and the chnages coming so quick.
That said there are many new Mac users coming into the market and families putting a Mac on every desk in the house.

 

[jfpoole]

macdoc wrote:
Mac users typical buy more software than PC users ( where single or limited use stations are in high numbers) and use their machines for more tasks.

Mac users might buy more software, but the sheer number of Windows users out there probably negates this fact.

( just look at any Mac versus PC poll and you'll see hordes of Mac users descend)

I thought this had more to do with the fact that there are a lot of Mac fanatics out there

 

[jfpoole]

gordguide wrote:
London Drugs has helped enourmously; before that your only choice was to go to the Campus Computer Store to drool; they can't sell to the public (and finding a parking spot within 6 blocks of campus can take an hour) so actually getting a computer home won't happen from there.

For what it's worth, some university computer stores will sell Apple hardware to Joe Random off the street (without the educational discount, mind you). It's usually a special order, though, so you can't walk in, drop a bundle of cash, and walk out with a new PowerBook.

Helpful for those of us who have a limited number of local Apple dealers

 

[gordguide]

Thanks jf, I knew that. Some will, but Campus Computers (hardware) won't sell systems to the general public. There is a small loophole, where I can present my old Student ID during the summer, with some story about being enrolled for the next semester, but my job keeps me out of the city until the new academic year starts.

I would happily give them my money; I have never been to a computer reseller outside of an AppleStore where the staff is more helpful (2-4 people working every day), where a price list for every single item as well manufacturer's and photocopied literature for virutally every product is readily available from in-store racks, and where good examples of hardware is setup, running, and free to play with.

They sell IBM, Compaq, and Apple CPUs out of what is probably a 15x20' space, and no, it's not crowded. Go figure. Haven't been there in a while, but I would bet there is an iMac, an eMac, a desktop, and an iBook running right now alongside about 6 x86 boxes and a couple of laptops. A variety of models of scanners, printers, etc will be attached to at least one machine. It's always been that way, even 20 years ago.

It's like Apple walked in there one day, and said: "We can do this"; it's so much like a "bare walls" version of an AppleStore it's eerie.

I can buy non-academic SW at the UofS Bookstore (Campus Computers doesn't sell SW).