Survey: Plans to buy a Mac hit an all-time high
ChangeWave is probably best known as a purveyor of e-mail get-rich-quick investment tips. But it also runs a monthly survey of its 15,000 subscribers that has proven to be a pretty good barometer of tech buying trends. Its latest report, issued Sunday, offers bad news and good — bad for the industry, good for Apple (AAPL).
The bad news, based on the 4,416 responses it received, is that planned consumer spending over the next 90 days is about as low as ChangeWave has ever seen. As Paul Carlton, executive director of the ChangeWave Alliance, put it:
"Just 15% of respondents say they'll spend more on electronics over the next 90 days compared to 34% who say they’ll spend less. The net difference between these numbers (-19-pts) is 13-pts lower than at the same time a year ago (Aug 2007)." (link)
The good news emerged when the 8% who planned to buy a laptop computer and the 5% who planned to buy a desktop were asked which brand they were considering. The number who picked Apple hit an all-time high for both laptops (34%; up 2 points) and desktops (30%; up 3 points).
That's a marked increase from the roughly 18% who said they planned to buy a Mac two years ago and the 28% who said they planned to buy an Apple laptop (or 23% who planned to buy a desktop Mac) in August 2007.
Asked whether the iPhone factored into their thinking, 17% said they were more likely to buy an Apple computer because of the iPhone 3G; only 1% said they were less likely.
"These highly positive findings," Carlton concludes, "point to the 3G iPhone having at least some 'Halo' effect on Mac sales going forward."
The news was mixed for Apple's competition. Planned purchases of Dell (DELL) notebooks (28%) was up 3 points since July and laptops (also 28%) was down 4 points. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) was down across the board: plans to buy HP laptops (20%) was down 4 points since July and desktops (17%) was down 3 points.
They may be buying into problem equipment. I bought an Imac 3 years ago and have had hardware and software problems. I recently had to replace the motherboard and powersupply. Now it doesn't interface well with the internet, shutting down regularly without warning. Apple did give me a credit for the motherboard after the warranty had just expired. Also it does not access certain media programs that only Windows handles which is frustrating. They are also over priced.
This is to Paul – I think you meant GM not GE. GE is a huge company that has never posted a lost and has many more billions in the bank compared to Apple. GE also has the market cap about 3 times that of Apple. They make more profits per quarter than what Apple makes in a year.
15,000 Is a very large number for ANY survey of the sort. I don't know where someone gets off thinking there's some under-sampling going on here…
Apple has a great opportunity here. Vista is, at least perceived, to be a joke. Dell, like GE, is essentially bankrupt. HP is rumored to be moving on a Linux initiative.
Apple have an interesting balance to maintain during this time of opportunity for them.
On the one hand they need to attack the market share that is on offer.
On the other hand, they must not lose sight of the values that put them in this strong position. Quality of experience requires a degree of over-resourcing and controlled expansion.
I wonder if Apple crossed this line in July, bringing out many products at the same time, and that is why there was a fall in quality ( MobileMe & iPhone 2.0 ). Steve Jobs talked about lessons learned – hopefully not just technical.
Jobs quietly mentioned in a CNBC interview that sales were at a "tipping point". He's right. The failure of Vista and the satisfaction levels for Apple products will continue to drive momentum toward Apple. There is an awful lot of market share in consumer and enterprise for Apple to take. And when the economy turns up… well, game on.
There is no way of knowing from this survey results if the number of would be apple owners has grown at the expense of people who actually went and bought the machines. Are people putting off purchases?