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Mac passes five percent global market share, iPhone dethrones BlackBerry among workforce in iPass study

For the first time in fifteen years, Apple’s Mac has passed five percent global market share for computers. The writing has been on the wall since Intel switch was announced in the summer of 2005. With sales outpacing the industry for the 22nd consecutive quarter, Mac biz was revitalized and benefitted tremendously from Apple’s successes with iOS devices.

Apple sold 4.89 million Macs in the September quarter, a 26 percent annual growth. That’s more Macs sold in Q3 2011 than any entire year before 2006. Charlie Wolf of Needham and Co observed in a note to clients Thursday that Macs perform well in both business and home markets, adding:

The growth in Mac shipments in the past year represented 20 percent of the growth in worldwide PC shipments.

Macs in enterprise grew 43.8 percent versus just 4.8 percent industry growth. In the home market, the analyst said, Macs grew 25.6 percent versus four percent growth for the overall PC home market. Put simply, Macs outpaced the industry growth in business and home markets more than ninefold and sixfold, respectively. However, Macs grew just 2.9 percent in education versus the industry average of 16.9 percent and sales to government declined by 0.6 percent, both due to iPad cannibalization.

The so-called halo effect is real. Gartner pegged third-quarter Mac sales growth in Western Europe at 19.6 percent as rivals Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Acer Group all lost ground. Analysts expect Mac sales to quadruple in China, the 1.33 billion people market that contributed to $13 billion in Apple’s fiscal 2011 revenue, up from just above $3 billion in fiscal 2010.

Meanwhile, another report by research firm iPass (please, no jokes) indicates that the iPhone has become the smartphone of choice for mobile workers previously married to their BlackBerrys…


Do you currently have any of the following smartphones?

A new Mobile Workforce Report by iPass reveals that smartphones now rule the enterprise world as 95 percent of mobile workers own one, a ten percentage points increase from 2010. BlackBerry pretty much held ground in the business market, losing just three percentage points of market share, from 35 percent in 2010 down to 32 percent in 2011. However, Apple’s iPhone has risen from 31.1 percent in 2010 to 45 percent in 2011, while Android climbed from 11.3 percent to 21.3 percent, knocking Nokia off the #3 slot. Symbian, Microsoft Windows Mobile and Others all lost share. In other words, nearly half the smartphones used by mobile workers in iPass’s survey were iPhones. You can see the whole reports as a PDF document here. Their findings were gleaned from data obtained from more than 2,300 respondents at over 1,100 enterprises worldwide.


Do you intend to receive or purchase any of the following smartphones in 2012?

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