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

To: Richard Habib who wrote (23085)	2/10/1999 3:22:00 PM
From: HerbVic	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213173

Richard, What may be confusing the issue on market share is that, where Apple is concerned, we are measuring the company's future along 2 product lines and projecting a limited growth. The two are iMacs and other Macs. We have a quasi known value for the iMacs based on an ill defined contract with a clone maker composited with a history of unit sales. That is not much to base a projection upon. The real world dynamic for AAPL over the next 24 months will include a consumer laptop, processor upgrades, OS X, new product roll outs, and potential surprises that have not even been hinted at yet. And why is 5% market share such an all important two year target? The company does not sink or swim based on that target. 4.5% market share by end of year 2000 would look good to investors. %5 would look better. 6% better yet. The avenue of outsourcing will give Apple leverage to achieve those numbers. It is essentially Apple allowing clones under the Apple umbrella and control, supporting a favorable ROI on OS development and maintenance. You are right about the numbers dynamics being huge. It is a huge market. That, however, is to Apple's advantage. It would be extremely difficult to take water away from the giant in the bath tub. In his lake, he can only monitor one shore at a time. HerbVic

To: Richard Habib who wrote (23085)	2/10/1999 9:49:00 PM
From: nommedeguerre	Respond to of 213173

Richard, >>The numbers I posted indicate how difficult it will be to make slight gains in marketshare I agree that Apple needs marketshare but marketshare is something that is measured against all PC's. What about established user-base numbers? If Apple's user-base increases from say 20 million to 30 million while maintaining a stagnant marketshare then why would developers be disappointed? It was not that long ago when all PC developers were fighting for a share of 30 million PC users. As long as there is money to be made off of Apple software there will be developers. Cheers, Norm

To: Richard Habib who wrote (23085)	2/11/1999 12:56:00 AM
From: Andrew Danielson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213173

Market share/Growth Wall Street cares about profits. And profits, present and future, are best indicated by internal growth rates, not market share. Think of it this way: internal growth rate as compared to industry average is a measure of the velocity with which the company is taking over market share. It's a matter of speed and direction taking precedence over position. You mentioned that to gain 1.7% market share Apple needs to grow by 40% over the next two years. Sounds daunting, but so long as Apple has growth outpacing the industry average, the market share gains will get easier as time goes on. An increase from 3.3% to 5% is a 51% proportional increase, after all. That's huge! If you project 30% growth in Apple (arbitrary) for the next 7 years against a backdrop of 10% industry growth (arbitrary). The raw market share measures will be: 3.33% 3.93% 4.65% 5.49% 6.48% 7.66% 9.05% The market share thus accelerates in terms of absolute numbers as the years go on. Project this out a few years more, and you're hitting some pretty high market share numbers. So, if Apple was sitting at 10 or 15% market share right now, how long could they maintain significantly faster than industry average growth without causing some major pain for some major players like Microsoft? Microsoft likes to pretend they are a friend of Apple right now, but just wait until Apple starts depriving them of real market share numbers. And of course, the larger your market share, the harder it is to have a very high growth rate. Besides, if you truly believe in Apple's long-term viability, the lower the market share they have now means you are all that much closer to being in on the ground floor! :-) Andrew