Most Mac Owners Also Own a Windows PC, But Not Vice Versa

Barence writes "More than eight out of ten Mac owners also own a PC, according to a new piece of research. The NPD survey found that 12% of US computer-owning households have a Mac. However, 85% of those also own a Windows PC, suggesting that the Mac/PC divide is nowhere near as clear cut as both Apple and Microsoft suggest. Mac owners are also far more likely to have multiple computers in the house. Two thirds of Mac owners have three or more computers in the home, while only 29% of PC owners have two or more PCs."

Comments

CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Gee, I could have deduced that most PC users DON'T also have a Mac. How? Maybe the bloody marketshare? Appologies for the US-centric market data, but I'm sure Apple is less than double-digit in the ROTW.

This is really a story in search of a topic, isn't it? :-)

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Penguinisto]

No kidding... even from the fanboy front, supporters can easily call out that this is just a natural progression of all the "switchers" out there.

After all, just because you buy a new computer (in this case a Mac), doesn't mean you simply toss out the old one. You give it to the kids, leave it loafing around the house for specific tasks you hadn't transferred to the Mac yet, keep it around for the occasional PC game you don;t want to get rid of, use it for backing up your Mac (e.g. you copy stuff from new laptop to the old desktop), etc.

...plus, I sincerely doubt that Apple gives a damn if users keep their old PC's around so long as they're buying new Macs.

There's no "switching" going on

[dingen]

I never got people who were talking about using a Mac as "switching". Like you would suddenly not use the operating system you have been using for the past 20 years by buying a computer that runs something different.

I don't know a lot of people who are devoted to a single platform. Most people I know use one OS on their desktop, something else on their notebook, something else on their phone etc. So when someone buys a Mac, they just add that platform to the list of systems they were already using. There's no reason to stop using all of your other stuff because a Mac got into the house.

Re:Here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what I took from that article is that the people most likely to gripe about Macs probably don't own one, whereas the Mac users griping about Windows are mostly speaking from personal experience.

Re:Here's why

[mabhatter654]

A vanilla Macbook is appropriately priced for what you get. You have to buy Sony or go online to get an equivalent laptop.. if anything the problem is that Apple doesn't make CHEAP computers like $300 netbooks so that cuts out the poor/cheap folks looking only at price. Even the maligned Mac Mini is a pretty good machine for MOST sub $700 machine buyers. The majority of PC users don't open their computers over the life of the machine. The majority don't even add ram or video cards. They pay $600 for Last Year's parts in an empty plastic box that makes them feel good. A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC. Again, the problem is that Apple doesn't sell a "stripped out" model to hit a lower price point like Dell does... then you find out that the Windows PC was TOO stripped out and won't use all the features of your new OS (hint: THAT is why Vista bombed.. Microsoft caving to cheap OEMs)

I'd look at these numbers differently. Most people own a PC because the workplace DEMANDS it. 12% of people that own a Mac in addition to a PC went out of their way to seek it out because they didn't like Windows.... that's a huge and growing dissatisfaction rating.

Re:Here's why

[shmlco]

"...along with the belief that apple has that much better reliability..."

Yeah, that's why Apple consistently has the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry.