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By Jim Woods and Andy Golub
Apple's (AAPL) core business has always been Mac computers. And according to two new ChangeWave surveys, it is holding strong despite a sluggish U.S. PC market.
A Resilient Apple
ChangeWave's May surveys showed weak corporate and consumer demand for PCs during the next 90 days. However, despite the slower spending environment, our new surveys reveal that projected Apple sales remain strong.
Apple's consumer market share is holding steady at 31% for planned laptop purchases for the next 90 days -- unchanged from the previous survey and still at near-record levels. Planned desktop purchases are down just two points to 27% from the all-time high recorded in January 2008.
Apple is also bucking the trend in the corporate PC market. Planned Mac purchases for the third quarter are at a record high for laptops (up one point to 8%), and hit a previous record high for desktops (6%).
According to the estimates of our IT buyers, demand for Macs among corporate employees (18%) appeared much higher than the current Mac user base (5%), which points to continued growth opportunities for Apple in the corporate market.
And, when it comes to consumer satisfaction, no company ranked higher than Apple.
A whopping 84% of consumers who bought an Apple computer during the past 90 days reported that they're "very satisfied." That's 31 points higher than its closest competitor, Dell (DELL).
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Dell's PC Results Mixed
While consumer purchasing plans for Dell laptops (up five points to 33%) appeared positive, desktops are set to take another hit (down three points to 29%).
Of course, the corporate side represents the bulk of Dell's PC sales, and there are few signs that Dell is set to outperform. Planned purchases of desktop PCs (down one point to 31%) and laptops (unchanged at 32%) looked flat-to-down in the latest survey.
Our overall outlook for Dell going forward remains cautious. This uncertainty has been recently reflected by the company itself. Dell reported stronger earnings for the first quarter, yet failed to provide any guidance for the second quarter and beyond.
Hewlett-Packard's Outlook
The ChangeWave survey results also presented a mixed picture for Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) U.S. sales.
In an upbeat finding, U.S. consumer PC sales seemed to be improving going forward, as planned desktop purchases (up two points to 20%) and laptop purchases (up three points to 22%) registered their first upticks in nearly a year.
On the downside, HP looked weaker in terms of planned U.S. corporate desktop purchases (down two points to 15%), while plans for laptops (14%) remained unchanged.
Note that almost 70% of HP's sales come from outside of the United States, and our ChangeWave surveys focus primarily on the U.S. market.
Nonetheless, with a sluggish U.S. market and mixed findings for the company, our outlook for HP remains cautious.
The bottom line: The current ChangeWave survey results point to Apple as the winner in the midst of an overall weaker U.S. PC market.
Jim Woods is ChangeWave's Senior Editor. Andy Golub is the Alliance's Director of Operations. The Alliance is a network of 15,000 highly qualified business, technology and medical professionals in leading companies of select industries. The Alliance is surveyed weekly on a wide range of business and investment research and intelligence topics.
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