Apple cleaning up in $1,000-plus retail market

Notebooks like the MacBook Pro, which starts at $1,999, are helping Apple dominate the $1,000-and-up market.
(Credit: Apple)Apple's doing well in the high-rent district of the computer industry, according to NPD.
On Friday eWeek published some data confirmed by NPD that reveals Apple now owns 66 percent of the U.S. retail market for personal computers that cost more than $1,000. Its percentage of the U.S. retail market in general is 14 percent, according to NPD.
Apple only sells one Mac below $1,000--the Mac mini--so it's not all that surprising that it would do well in that category, given the momentum behind Mac sales over the past year. By contrast, the single largest category of notebooks available at Best Buy--when sorted by price--falls between $700 and $899. And two-thirds of the desktops on the site are priced below $1,000.
These numbers don't include an awful lot of sales--such as corporate PCs that account for about half the market, and online-heavy sellers such as Dell--but tend to illustrate trends in the U.S. PC market over time. Apple only had about 18 percent of the same category in January 2006, according to Fortune. That was the same month Apple introduced its first Intel-based Mac.
This is a profitable category, however, that all PC companies covet. Those PC companies may be reaching corporate customers at those price points, but Apple is dominating the consumer half of the high end.
Tom Krazit, a staff writer for CNET News, focuses on all things Apple. He has covered traditional PC companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, chip companies such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and mobile computers ranging from Research In Motion's to Palm's. E-mail Tom.





Are could this means that one gets in return value for the payment? A machine and software that works.
Could this just mean that Macs cost too much? Or could this mean that one gets in return value for the payment? A machine and software that works.
Statistics are always meaningless when you don't agree with what they are saying.
:)
You clearly misunderstand how markets work...
Does anyone do research anymore?
Hilarious with the same old car analogy. Too bad now PC's and Apple's have the EXACT SAME hardware inside. So it's like paying for a Lexus, but getting the Hundai engine.
Yum yum give me more of that stuff uncle Steve.
How to increase Apple market share? Pretend that Dell, Lenovo and other business-heavies DON'T EXIST! That's a great idea.
That little cheap HP Compaq laptop the school system issued can't do much of anything. I do all my computer work at home where I have one that can deliver everything I want and need.
WATER IS WET
SKY IS BLUE.
Statistics show that macs maine seller of $1500 machines takes up 90 percent of the market that sells machines for $1490 to $1520.
Really, how stupid do these writers think we are?
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by faust
May 20, 2008 11:06 AM PDT
- Not if you are a business person, shows who might have a healthy profit margin and who doesn't.
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See all 39 Comments >>As a marketing person it also shows be which company has the least price sensative base, important to know in a field with low margins and slowing sales thanks to a jittery economy.