The decision by Microsoft to give away a free Xbox 360 with a new PC purchase comes as new research shows that Apple is stripping market share away from Microsoft and the Windows operating system at a fast rate of knots.
The research conducted by Needham analyst Charlie Wolf shows that Mac shipments grew about 66 percent in the first quarter of 2011 where the total PC market advanced 4.5 percent. In the SMB market Apple grew their share by over 80 percent.
Set to compound Microsoft’s problems is a move by Google to release a new version of their Chrome OS for notebooks and netbooks.
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Apple now has three percent of corporate PCs, a figure that is worrying for Microsoft who are also losing share in the home PC market due to tablets and new Macs.
Apple’s core market share in the home market grew 21.6 percent while the Windows based PC industry dropped 4.4 percent.
According to Needham the largest gains were in both very large (enterprise) and small businesses, where Apple was up 94.7 percent and 80.4 percent respectively. In all cases it was significantly above the wider market.
According to Needham both State and Federal Governments often one of the hardest segments for Apple to breach, were now buying MAC computers over a Windows based machine.
Education sales were virtually flat for Apple despite Apple having a strong presence in schools.
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Wolf Said that Apple now appeared to be in a sustained push in the corporate world. While not directly explaining the push, he noted that Apple had a trio of halo effects active from the iPad, iPhone, and iPod along with more retail stores.
Recently JB Hi Fi Marketing Director Scott Browning said that his company was having a lot of success selling Apple products. He said that a combination of iPad, iPod and iPhone sales was also driving sales of Mac computers.
“We have witnessed exceptional growth” with Apple he said.
Recently Apple said that a lot of Corporate and Government organisations were now using iPads and that they were confident that this would help in them getting Mac computers into markets traditionally dominated by Microsoft.
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Shipments of Windows based PCs are plunging across several markets including Asia Pacific. Needham said sales were down as much as 10 to 20 percent in the US, Europe, and Japan.
Wolfe said that Apple saw growth of at least eight percent in Europe and nearly 70 percent in Asia. Europe was a highlight for Apple as it now had over eight percent of market share, a new high in a market that has usually been resistant to Macs.
