A research firm looks into the near future and sees … an Apple "iPad" next year

Apple (AAPL) figures prominently in IDC's top 10 predictions for the coming year, released Thursday and available here (registration required). The relevant bullet points:

• The "iPad" will finally arrive. Last year, we predicted that we would not see the then-rumored Apple tablet in 2009. This year, however, we predict that Apple will finally introduce this new device family, which is more of an oversized (8in., 10in.) iPod Touch than a downsized Mac — and if you look at the developer energy around the iPhone/Touch platform, this should be no surprise at all. This prediction is a no-brainer: there's enormous appeal in sizing up the iPhone/Touch for a variety of applications and activities that people already use those devices for but would jump at the chance to have a larger screen — watching videos/movies, reading books/magazines/newspapers (it would take a big bite from the Kindle), surfing the Web, videophone, and online gaming. Look for Apple's "iPad" by year-end 2010. Oh, and don't be surprised to see Microsoft also announce its own device in this space. … One big question for 2010 is which way Apple will go with 3G connectivity for the iPad — private labeling a wireless carrier's network as "AppleNet" or simply merchandising carriers' wireless subscriptions through the iTunes store.

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Shareholders press Microsoft's CEO about Apple's marketing campaign

Image: Apple Inc.

Those Get-a-Mac ads make "you all look like a buffoon," one long-time shareholder (and father of four Mac-using children) told Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer at the company's annual meeting Thursday. "I'm just wondering why your marketing group can't do something to try to rein in this next generation, because you've got a real bad image out there."

"We all watch television," Ballmer responded, before quickly changing the subject to Microsoft's market share.

"The truth of the matter is, we do quite well," he said, according to TechFlash's Todd Bishop, who seems to have taken the best notes. "Even among college students, we do quite well. Do we have an opportunity for improvement? We do. Some of that is marketing, some of that is phase of life. It is important to remember that 96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows; that's a good thing. Even in the toughest market, which would be the high end of the consumer market here in the U.S., 83 times out of 100 people choose a Windows PC over a Mac."

Ballmer acknowledged that Apple (AAPL) had "picked up a couple of tenths of a percent of market share," an achievement some in the audience seemed to find laughable.

But as the Wall Street Journal's Nick Wingfield points out, citing IDC numbers, Apple's share of new PC shipments in the U.S. was 9.2% in the third quarter, up from 4.8% in the same period four years ago. (Worldwide share: 3.9% compared with 2.4% four years ago.)

Wingfield also took a crack at estimating how many copies of Window 7 Microsoft has sold, a number the company has not provided.

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Gartner puts Apple at 8.8%, IDC at 9.4%. This bodes well for next week's earnings report

Source: MacRumors.com

Apple (AAPL) computers sold surprisingly well in a shaky economy last quarter, according to a pair of preliminary reports issued Wednesday by Gartner and IDC.

The big winner this summer was Acer, which became the world's undisputed No. 2 computer maker, after Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), on the strength of netbooks that sell for under $400.

But Mac sales also grew, despite an average selling price of just over $1,200 and profit margins that are the envy of the industry.

Reporting only domestic sales, Gartner estimates that Apple shipped 1.572 million Macs in the United States last quarter, up 6.8% year to year, for an 8.8% market share.

IDC's numbers were slightly higher: 1.64 million Macs, up 11.8%, 9.4% market share.

These seem to be record numbers. Twelve months ago, Gartner put Apple's U.S. market share at 9.5% and IDC had it at 9.1%, but those were preliminary reports. Both firms revised their 2008 Q3 Mac numbers sharply downward and now say Apple's share of the U.S. market last year was actually 8.6%.

Neither Gartner nor IDC reports Apple's worldwide Mac sales. For that we'll have to wait until Monday, Oct. 19, when Apple issues its quarterly earnings report. Analysts we surveyed put total Mac sales anywhere between 2.6 million and 2.9 million, with a consensus of 2.76 million.

UPDATE: Reader SMR in Nashua, N.H., points out that if you go back far enough, you can find years in which Apple enjoyed a larger share of the U.S. PC market. In 1994, for example, it was No. 2 (after Packard Bell) with a 14.7% share. In 1981, it had 17%, which put it in the No. 2 spot after Radio Shack (20%). Source: Ken Paulson's Chronology of Apple Computer Personal Computers.

Below the fold: Gartner and IDC's current U.S. and worldwide PC numbers:

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It's numbers like these that make you wonder what exactly Gartner and IDC are measuring.

In competing reports issued Wednesday afternoon, the two leading PC market research firms reported domestic Mac shipments for the second quarter of 2009 that differed by more than 200,000 units.

Gartner reported Apple (AAPL) shipping 1.422 million Macs in the U.S., a 2.5% increase over Q2 2008 in a quarter that saw overall PC shipments in the U.S. decline 1.2%.

IDC had Apple shipping 1.213 million Macs in the same quarter, a 12.4% year-to-year decline that was far worse than the industry average -3% and dropped Apple into fifth place the U.S market, after Dell (DELL), HP (HPQ), Acer and Toshiba.

According to Gartner, Apple has an 8.7% share of the U.S. market. According to IDC, that share is 7.6%.

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Almost lost in the noise of the Presidential debates, the collapse of the Dow and the milling of those new MacBook aluminum unibodies were the preliminary reports from Gartner and IDC this week that showed sharp gains for Apple (AAPL) in third-quarter domestic computer shipments.

Apple's unit shipments year-over-year grew 32% according to IDC, and 29.4% according to Gartner — more than six times the industry average.

As Gartner measures it, Apple's market share hit a record 9.5% in calendar Q3, up from 7.7% in the same quarter a year ago.

IDC's numbers show even steeper gains: it puts Apple's Q3 market share at 9.1%, up from 7.3% in 2007.

It's almost as if Apple were in a different business than Dell (DELL), HP (HPQ), Acer and Toshiba. While the average selling price of PCs continued to drop this summer — thanks, as Gartner notes, to the growing popularity of under-$500 "netbooks" — Apple kept its prices high as it added memory, power and stylish features.

Exactly how profitable calendar Q3 (Apple's fiscal Q4) was for the company we'll find out at the close of market next Tuesday, when Apple issues its quarterly and annual earnings reports.

Below: the raw data from Gartner and IDC. Note that neither company reports Apple's worldwide sales numbers.

[Gartner chart courtesy of AppleInsider.]

[IDC chart courtest of Electronista.]

Dueling reports Wednesday from the two leading PC survey firms — Gartner and IDC — confirm what the crowds at the Apple (AAPL) stores have been telling us: The Mac had a great second quarter.

According to Gartner, Mac sales grew 38% year-over-year to edge out Acer/Gateway/PackardBell for the No. 3 spot in the United States after Dell (DELL) and HP (HPQ). IDC recorded slightly slower growth (31.7%) and has Apple still trailing Acer by 2,000 units — not a statistically significant figure in a quarter in which Apple shipped an estimated 2.37 million Macs worldwide.

Gartner puts Apple's U.S. market share at 8.5%, up from 6.4% a year ago; IDC has it at 7.8%, up from 6.2%. Both reports are preliminary.

Apple still doesn't make the top 5 in either company's list of top PC vendors worldwide, although IDC's Loren Loverde says it came in No. 6. (link)

It's worth noting that while its competitors were cutting prices to boost sales in a tight domestic economy, Apple managed to grow faster while maintaining profit margins that are the envy of the industry.

And if you count iPhones and iPod touches as computers, says 9to5 Mac's Seth Weintraub, "you get a whole new ball game."

Below the fold: the charts from both reports. More

After drifting inexplicably in February, March and April — actually losing market share in two out of three months just when Macintosh sales seemed to be on fire — Mac OS X recovered smartly in the Net Applications survey issued overnight Sunday.

Apple's (AAPL) share of the operating system market grew 5.69% in May to hit a record 7.80%, while Windows in all its flavors dropped half a point to 91.17%. That's a record low for Microsoft (MSFT), which nonetheless still runs on 9 out of 10 computers on the Internet, as Net Applications measures it (more on its methodology below).

The iPhone's OS market share, whch Net Applications measures separately from OS X, has temporarily leveled off, according to the report, reflecting the shortage of product as Apple cleared inventory in May and customers held off purchases in anticipation of the new 3G model. In an IDC report issued Friday, the iPhone actually lost share in the smartphone market, falling from 26.7% in the last quarter of 2007 to 19.2% in the first quarter of 2008. RIM (RIMM), meanwhile, gained share in the same period, growing from 35.1% to 44.5% on the strength of new, consumer-oriented BlackBerries. (see here)

The discrepancy between IDC's and NetApplication's numbers can be explained to some extent by the nature of the two surveys. IDC's quarterly reports are sales counts, based on surveys of retail outlets. Net Applications, by contrast, collects data from the browsers of visitors — some 160 million per month — to its customers websites. As such, its findings are probably better described as a snapshot of installed base taken from a less-than-random sample. But the results are useful for indicating trends, and tend to correspond well to domestic market share as measured by more traditional methods.

To see Net Application’s June 1 report, click here. The results are summarized in the table below:

Subscribers: to see the chart, click here.

Acer, the Taiwanese computer manufacturer that acquired Gateway Inc. last year, has as a result overtaken Apple (AAPL) in both U.S. and worldwide computer sales, according to preliminary reports issued Wednesday by Gartner and IDC.

Although the two market research firms show Apple's domestic computer sales in the Christmas quarter up roughly 30 percent from last year — outpacing the industry average by better than 3 to 1 — Apple's share of the market actually fell during those three months. According to Gartner, the Mac now has 6.1 percent of the U.S. market; according to IDC it's 5.7 percent. That puts Apple in 4th place behind Dell (DELL), HP (HPQ) and Acer in U.S. personal computer sales.

In October, Gartner and IDC estimated Apple's 3Q share of the U.S. market to be considerably higher: 8.1 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively. See here.

In worldwide PC sales, Apple doesn't make the top five in either research firm's report.

These results would seem to contradict analysts' predictions of blowout Christmas sales for Apple. Earlier this week Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster estimated that 2.3 million Macs may have shipped worldwide in the quarter, representing year-to-year growth of 43 percent.

Gartner's and IDC's results are preliminary and could change when the manufacturers release their sales figures. Apple is scheduled to announce it's quarterly results next Tuesday.

Below the fold: Gartner and IDC charts of U.S. computer sales.

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Dueling reports from Gartner and IDC show Apple (AAPL) grabbing a larger slice of domestic computer market in the third quarter of 2007, although the reports disagree about just how large that slice is.

Gartner has Apple's market share climbing to 8.1%, up from 6.2% a year earlier.

IDC also shows strong growth for the company, but by its calculations, Apple now commands a 6.3% market share, up from 5.7% last summer.

Their findings are summarized in the charts below.