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Leopard Claims Half the Japanese OS Market In October
hoagiecat writes "Is Apple like all those bands who claim to be "huge in Japan"? Leopard accounted for 53 percent of boxed operating systems sold in Japan in October — even though it was only on sale for the last six days of the month. 'The software went on sale worldwide on Oct. 26 with sales kicking off at 6 p.m. local time in each country. Users in New Zealand and Australia got their hands on Leopard first, but Tokyo saw the first launch at an Apple retail store. About 200 people lined up in light rain to buy the software at Apple's store in the ritzy Ginza district of Tokyo. Lines also formed at other Apple stores across the country and at major electronics retailers, where special events were held to mark the start of sales. Combined with other sales of other operating systems including Tiger, Apple had an overall 60.7 percent share of the market in October -- that's a big jump from the 15.5 percent share it had in September, which was itself the highest share Apple had managed to get so far in 2007. '"
that's a big jump from the 15.5 percent share it had in September, which was itself the highest share Apple had managed to get so far in 2007.
This big jump makes sense, really. Who in their right mind would buy Tiger a month before Leopard is coming out, unless they specifically can't/wouldn't use Leopard for some reason? It's more impressive to me that they're beating out Microsoft, but I guess MS relies on the PC makers for most of its sales; it doesn't really need to specifically sell Vista when people are replacing their PCs fairly often. Macs generally last longer (or at least are kept longer) from what I hear, so it's more likely that someone will buy a boxed copy of a Mac OS upgrade than a Windows upgrade.
It'd be notable if Apple did much worse than this.
1.) It's boxed sales. The people who upgrade via boxed sales are the ones who aren't going to wait to get new hardware to upgrade the OS. These people are likely to be the early adopters who will buy within the first week
2.) Vista has been out for a while, and the people who have upgraded via boxed sales have likely done it by now. Vista sales come from OEM distribution, not buying a shiny box at Best Buy.
3.) I would expect the numbers for November to drop substantially, as the early adopters will have their copies, and sales of boxed copies drop. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if hardware sales pick up a bit, as people find the holiday season and new OS to be a good time to take the plunge and buy a new computer.
The numbers to pay attention to are Apple's share of new sales, especially in laptops, and Apple's share of total installed base (which is harder to calculate accurately).
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I suspect that if you look at sales of boxed operating systems on Oct. 26 from 6 pm to 6 am Apple had a nearly 100% share. The statistic is nearly meaningless. The initial rush for Vista already took place.
And somehow a line of 200 whole people in a city of 12 million (0.00166% of the population) doesn't seem like very many. More than 200 people probably lined up in the light rain to buy the Japanese equivalent of hot dogs that night.
OS X displays beautiful Japanese text. Windows is barely legible by comparison.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
Yes, because they all bought the OS so they can admire it on their bookshelf. No, no wait, I know! They all bought it so they can install it on their Dell boxes! No wait...
I think it's pretty safe to assume that each copy of the OS sold represents a single Mac user, barring the VERY, VERY few OSx86 hackers out there.
I do agree though, this says nothing about Apple's growth in Japan. It just means existing Mac users are excited about upgrading to Leopard (moreso than XP users to Vista, but that's a no-brainer), it doesn't mean that Macs are necessarily gaining ground.