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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jeftuxedo who wrote (58236)	10/31/2006 1:50:37 PM
From: inaflash	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213182

"They aren't going to double their market share in MP3 players -- they already own 70% of that market," says Mark Stahlman, a technology strategist at Gartner Invest. "The only opportunity I can think of for Apple to substantially expand their business would be to double or triple their market share of Macintoshes." No doubt Apple computers is a ripe opportunity, but some things forgotten is the growth in market in MP3, digital downloads, and desktops/laptops. With all the low end MP3 players around, and if you count the MP3 players in cell phones, Apple's market share could quickly drop to single digits in a couple of years, BUT it wouldn't mean anything, especially since they could achieve increased growth in units and sales/profits. Look at the camera market, and see where the high-end is going versus the low-end. abiresearch.com itnews.com.au news.com.com Then there's Apple's iTunes Music Store that currently has single digit market share in the music market. Plenty of potential growth there. There's also the nascent video market, another Apple opportunity. Looking just at market share, without regard to where the market is heading is getting a very skewed view. Also, the latest Gartner PC report shows the company growing its third-quarter U.S. market share from to 6.1% from 4.6% a year earlier. Again, good news, but without knowing what the market did (assume it was fairly flat?), it's hard to decipher the full meaning of this numeric growth. Increased market share in a growing market is doubly impressive, and the number may be understating the good news. Increasing market share in a falling market is both good and bad news. Sales may be flat, and maintaining the sales itself is good news (beating out the competition), but a falling market isn't good for anyone. With the PC market here in the US fairly mature, we have to consider the possibility of both rising and falling markets. New applications (i.e. iLife, and not just OS: Leopard and Vista) are needed to drive longer term growth, or else we'll be stuck in a replacement market mode. One more anecdote. I recall reading an article a couple of years ago about Sony gaining market share in the floppy market. They went from something over 50% to nearly 100% when the competition dropped out. Sounds like a terrific market share gain story, but in an all but irrelevant market today.