85 Percent of Mac Switchers Forgot to Toss Windows PC
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 5, 2009 at 9:51 AM PT
Approximately 12 percent of all computer-using U.S. households own an Apple (AAPL) machine (a nice jump from nine percent in 2008), and nearly 85 percent of those also own a Microsoft (MSFT) Windows-based PC.
That’s the conclusion of an NPD survey that suggests that Mac households favor multiplatform environments, buy more gadgets and have the higher income needed to afford them.
“While Apple owners tend to own more computers and more electronics devices, there is also a high correlation among Apple owners and more affluent consumer households,” said NPD’s Stephen Baker. “The average Apple household owns 48 CE devices whereas the average computer household owns about 24.” (See chart below; click to enlarge.)
Not a surprise, really. Presumably, if you can afford to purchase a $1,199 laptop or desktop, you can afford to buy an assortment of other gadgetry to go along with it. A couple of other data points worth noting:
- 66 percent of Mac households own three computers or more, compared to 29 percent of Windows households.
- 63 percent of Mac households own an iPod. The same can be said of only 36 percent of all computer-using households.
Sadly, NPD’s survey didn’t explore how PCs are used in Mac households or how they ended up there in the first place. Are they leftovers from a PC-to-Mac switch? Are they corporate laptops? Entry-level machines for the kids? High-end gaming machines?
Comments
why are we NOT focusing on the huge growth in mac adoption? macs are in 33% MORE U.S. households this year than last year (all during a dismal economic environment). THAT should be the headline.
Posted by glen engelmann at October 5th, 2009 at 10:24 amit is not surprising at all to me that most households still have pc’s (for reasons that you highlighted and probably others). i OWN several pcs, but i don’t actually USE them anymore since i switched to macs.
Your analysis is flawed. The reason we still have 3 PC’s is because of work-related purposes. The industries in which we work have not allowed us to switch to Mac. Although, my boss, who is the IT Mgr, admits that she would have far fewer virus issues – job security for her – perhaps???
Posted by Desiree Deschamps at October 5th, 2009 at 10:35 amFor personal work and issues – we solely use Mac.
glen engelmann commented: “why are we NOT focusing on the huge growth in mac adoption?”
All things Digital doesn’t report good Apple news.
Posted by Lenny Pudinskaya at October 5th, 2009 at 10:41 amPC? What is that?
Posted by Armando Lopes at October 5th, 2009 at 10:54 amThis lends credibility to those who declare a preference to Macs: they are apparently quite likely to have direct experience with both platforms.
Posted by Doug Knowles at October 5th, 2009 at 11:32 amOn my mac, I have one Windows98 machine, two Win2000 machines, one Win-XP, and NO (!) win-Vista machines. All run native using the Intel instruction set. And then of course there’s my Mac-OS-X that hosts these four PCs on the Mac. Do I count as 80% windows?
Posted by stewart stanton at October 5th, 2009 at 11:35 amI just bought a new 13″ Macbook Pro-my older MB Pro took a dump. I also have 2 imacs and the wife has a MB Pro. A 5th generation Nano, 2 iPhones and one more in December-and one cheap black plastic POS Dell laptop for some windows programs. I would use my mac/bootcamp for that but lost my Windows XP cd.
Posted by David Owens at October 5th, 2009 at 1:24 pmMac switchers did not forget to toss Windows PC, it’s just that they worry that doing so might pollute the environment too much and because it is extremely difficult to find someone willing to pay actual money for a used PC.
Posted by Jean-Michel Paris at October 5th, 2009 at 1:43 pmWe should keep in mind that NPD is using a self selected group of about 2,400 users for this survey,
AND NPD offers gifts cash and prizes for those that complete the online forms…..
Me I dont trust this type of survey, I would be much happier to see numbers based on sales and on hard data, rather then a survey based on winning an iPod or a free Xbox etc.
But hey , if you want to say 12% of households in the USA have at least one apple machine with less then 3% having just an apple machine, sure why not.
Posted by jack deed at October 5th, 2009 at 2:39 pmOR we could say,
That more than 97% of homes with computers have at least one PC and less then 3% have an apple and no PC.
I guess almost everybody is going with Microsoft to some degree.
(mac fans will hate that)
Posted by jack deed at October 5th, 2009 at 2:41 pmI’m a Mac user and yes, I have a Dell notebook rotting away in some closet somewhere. I think I tried installing Linux on it, didn’t like it, and never rebuilt the Windows environment.
Posted by Michael Long at October 5th, 2009 at 2:42 pmAs a retired computer professional I am embarrassed to admit I don’t have a clue what a “CE” device is.
I know Microsoft used to have something called Windows CE, but like so many things they had to come up with a new name for it to bury bad publicity.
More to the point, I still regard the move by Apple to Intel devices with disdain. Oh, I understand why they did it… commodity devices, get the price down to compete with Dell, get out of the computer business as such, and of course make it possible to run Windows.
I still have a PowerPC Apple that works just fine. No new OSs from Apple, but also unlikely anyone will bother coding malware for it too.
Meantime a friend “inherited” an Apple laptop and (as it is Intel based) delight in running several old operating systems on it (and clearly does so as a productivity sink hole). He’s even trying to get an old copy of OS/2 to run on it. The last thing in fact that he is interested in is running an APPLE OS on it and I think a lot of new Apple owners fall into this category.
Apple encroachment on Wintel has been glacial and they gave up on the Intel front. With the multiple paradigm shifts that are going on now it probably doesn’t even matter any more.
Apple has always been boutique and in ten years, if they still exist, they will still be boutique. But that seems to suit them.
C’est la vie
Posted by Mac Beach at October 5th, 2009 at 3:18 pmThere is a Mac mini on the desk and a Windows XP box literally being used as a doorstop at my friend’s place.
Posted by Fred Hamranhansenhansen at October 5th, 2009 at 5:09 pmThe reason to keep your PC is so you won’t forget just how awful things used to be.
Posted by Dave Small at October 7th, 2009 at 6:24 am