I read a report today that said that Apple’s OS X 10.5 (Leopard) pre-order sales are nearly twice that of 2005’s 10.4 (Tiger). This is a clear indication that Apple is gaining market-share and building their user-base up from the doldrums of 3% that it languished in for so many years.
This is great news for us old timers that have used Macs so patiently during the lean years. More developers are beginning to see that the Mac market is one worth getting in to. The article mentioned that OS X 10.5 was on the top of Amazon’s Software best selling list. I couldn’t believe it so I went there myself to check it out. They were absolutely correct. In the number one and two slots were the single-user and family-user 10.5.
Since I was already there, I decided to see what else made the top 25. Amazingly enough, software capable of running on Macs made up over half (though just barely at 13) of the list. Here they are in all their glory!
Amazon’s Top 25 software selling list Mac related (Accurate as of October 22, 2007 at around 3pm)
1. OS X 10.5 Single-user license
2. OS X 10.5 5-user family pack
3. Spongbob Squarepants Typing 2008 (Win/Mac)
5. Microsoft Office 2004 Student Edition
6. iLife 08 Single-user license
9. Apple’s .mac version 3
10. Parallels Desktop 3 for the Mac
11. iWork 08 single-user license
13. iLife 08 5-user family pack
16. iWork 08 5-user family pack
17. VMWare Fusion Mac
20. Microsoft Office for the Mac (Full edition)
21. Roxio Toast Titanium
Six spots in the top ten, 13 overall out of 25. People are excited about the Mac and it’s showing in sales. In overall electronics, Apple makes a good showing.
3. iPod Nano 4gb
6. 80gb iPod Classic (Black)
10. iPod Nano 8gb
16. iPod Touch 8gb
17 iPod Touch 16gb
21. 80gb iPod Classic (Silver)
Six out of 25 of ALL electronics selling at Amazon. Let’s look at computer sales.
1. MacBook 2.16Ghz (White)
5. MacBook 2Ghz (White)
8. MacBook Pro 15-inch 2.2Ghz
11. iMac 20-inch 2Ghz
15. MacBook 2.16Ghz (Black)
18. MacBook Pro 15-inch 2.4Ghz
19. iMac 20-inch 2.4Ghz
23. iMac 24-inch 2.4Ghz
Almost 1/3 of all computers sold by Amazon or through their partners were Macs. If I wanted to be real fanboyish, I would also point out that a few of the top spots were occupied by Apple service plans for their computer hardware (In spots 9, 10, and 14). While it certainly adds to their bottom line, they aren’t computers.
In notebook computers, Apple had 6 of the top 25 slots. In desktops, Apple had 10 of the top 25 (including the top 5 all to themselves). This isn’t Apple against Dell or HP, this is Apple against the entire market. It’s too bad it’s almost impossible to break up market-share between home and business PCs. Most likely Apple’s share of the home market is much higher than the often quoted 5 to 8%.
It’s a good time to be a Mac user.
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