NPD analyst: Apple now gets 91% of spending on $1,000-plus computers

July 23, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments | |

iwinMy fellow San Franciscans have been in-your-face Apple zealots for decades. But industry analysts NPD now claim shockingly that we’ve become the norm. NPD analysts are going around saying that nine out of ten dollars spent in the U.S. on computers costing $1,000 or more go to Apple. NPD doesn’t have an official report, but the company was quoted by Betanews reporter Joe Wilcox. The 91 percent figure is not only insanely high, it’s a 50 percent leap from NPD’s claim in the first quarter 2008 that Apple’s revenue market share was 66 percent.

Is this true? How is it possible? NPD vice president of industry analysis Stephen Baker says it’s simple: “The average price of a non-netbook Windows PC is under $600. It’s hard to see what functionality you could add to a Windows notebook to make it worth $1,200 to $1,500 to someone.”

So what is Apple giving people for an extra thousand or two thousand dollars? “Apple is giving them Apple,” Baker said. “They’re the only ones willing to sell computers at that price level. They’re like Mercedes that way. In tech, we tend to think performance is most important, but most people want functionality. Yet there are lots of people who want to say, ‘I want to be cool and drive around in a fancy car.’ An Apple computer makes you cool, it makes other people jealous.”

I have to agree. I carried Matt Marshall’s old Fujitsu laptop into last week’s MobileBeat 2009 conference, and people actually asked why I didn’t have a PowerBook. The Fujitsu seemed wrong under my arm, they said.

I’m still skeptical about the 91 percent figure. If true, it says more about the lack of high-end sales for Windows notebooks. Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” TV ads used $1,000 as the cutoff point for a new laptop. It’s hard to believe only 10% of notebook/desktop spending is going toward HP, Dell, Lenovo and the rest. Are you an analyst with a contrary opinion? Email me at paul@venturebeat.com.

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About the Author, Paul Boutin

Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • can't be true -- thinkpads alone must be a few %. All gaming rigs?
  • I can't believe it is accurate. The report is not available yet but all the bloggers are jumping on the betanews article. Thanks Paul for reporting in a different (non fanboy) style and for being critical. I am curious to see the research article.

    What came to my mind as well was the Vaio product line. Sony does have a lot of laptops in the 1,000+ category and I am certain they are selling quite well. As well as all the Lenovos above USD 1,000 as rkorba mentioned
  • newposter
    Paul,

    You have no idea what you are talking about. Do you have an editor or do you just do stream
    of consciousness stuff that escapes onto the site?
  • ronwilliams
    Last time I was in an Apple store, to buy my 8th Mac in 28 years, it sure seemed like a lot of Macbooks were flying off the shelves.
  • Di
    This probably doesn't count corporate sales.

    Corporate laptop purchases are usually 1000+ business grade windows computers, and a majority has to be Windows simply because the servers are mostly Windows based as well.