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Because it could mean that sophisticated markets are not impressed by the stagnating offering and the only reason the Mac is seeing growth is that people are bu

Because it could mean that sophisticated markets are not impressed by the stagnating offering and the only reason the Mac is seeing growth is that people are buying Macs for the first time in developing countries. That being said, they just said on the call that all geographic areas grew by at least 20% in Mac sales so maybe I was reading too much into Tim Cook's earlier comment.

nihonde 9y ago
Implying that China is not a "sophisticated market"?
- brianpgordon 9y ago
  It's certainly filled with people who have never used Macs. You have to take that into account when using global growth to try to predict future US growth.
  - nihonde 9y ago
    Mac usage is a metric for sophistication? What a silly set of comments. People seem to grossly underestimate China. That hubris will only hurt you in the long run. Half or more of the stuff in those “sophisticated” computers is sourced in China.
    - matthewmacleod 9y ago
      I think you're reading the wrong meaning into this particular word. I would take the term 'sophisticated market' to refer to a market that is established and has largely passed the initial saturation phase. There will a number of different actors in the market competing on axes other than "who can offer the most product for the least money," with more complexity in trade as participants' marketing and sales strategies evolve, or as consumer behaviour starts to be affected by other forces. In this sense, China is a less sophisticated market – that's not a problem or a negative, it's just a different stage of market development. It's reasonable to point out that sales behaviour will be different for that market as a result.
    - pdpi 9y ago
      People don't tend to be equally sophisticated buyers across all product categories. Mac usage is definitely a metric for buyer sophistication, when we're talking about Mac sales!
- chronice70 9y ago
  Most of China doesn't have internet. I don't know what your definition of sophisticated is.
  - robin_reala 9y ago
    Wikipedia has Chinese internet usage at 50.3%, so to be accurate a majority of Chinese people now have internet access: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...
    - ktta 9y ago
      I think 'internet' includes any one of the services of the big three. That's hardly the internet usage we have in mind.
      - lostlogin 9y ago
        I don’t imagine internet usage stats show a rosy picture anywhere.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    China has 3x as many internet users as the US. India also has more internet users. So yeah, percentage wise they may be lower, but that's still a billion folks between those two countries alone.
    - brianpgordon 9y ago
      Yeah, and rural Indians have to use peer-to-peer networks to download their apps because service is so spotty and expensive. That's materially different from an "internet user" in Western Europe or Japan or the United States.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  I think the grandparent could have characterized China as an "emerging market" relative to say the US which is a "developed market".
threeseed 9y ago
The Mac is stagnating ? They dropped the ball on the MacPro but everything else saw evolutionary upgrades this year. The MacBook Pro is the 2nd generation of this design which usually see more people upgrading to. And to be fair it's a dramatic upgrade over older models.
- torstenvl 9y ago
  Most Mac products saw evolutionary downgrades since 2015.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    That's an opinion not a statement of fact. The fact is that Mac sales are growing which contradicts your opinion. And as the owner of a MacBook Pro 2015 and 2017 which I both use everyday I would disagree with your opinion.
    - torstenvl 9y ago
      "That's an opinion not a statement of fact." That is not accurate. The MBP keyboard, for example, is objectively worse, both ergonomically and due to quality control issues. https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/21/macbook-pro-keyboard-problems/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/21/macbook-pro-keyboard-problems... https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston-macbook-keyboard https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston-macboo... "The fact is that Mac sales are growing which contradicts your opinion." This is a non sequitur. Popularity is not a definitive measure of quality. Beyond that, Mac sales are down from 2015 in every single quarter. Q1 5519 5312 5374 Q2 4563 4034 4199 Q3 4796 4252 4292 Q4 5709 4886 5386 https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-ma... https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy17-q4/Q4FY17DataSummary.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy17-q4/Q4FY17DataSummar...
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        You don’t understand what objective means. For example- everyone I know with one LOVES the new keyboard. Myself included: for me it’s the best laptop keyboard I’ve used, period. That alone tears your point apart but it’s also telling that you picked 2015 (one of the peak sales years for Macs in the last decade). You either deliberately intended to mislead or you just don’t actually understand how market fluctuations work.

nihonde 9y ago

Implying that China is not a "sophisticated market"?

brianpgordon 9y ago
It's certainly filled with people who have never used Macs. You have to take that into account when using global growth to try to predict future US growth.
- nihonde 9y ago
  Mac usage is a metric for sophistication? What a silly set of comments. People seem to grossly underestimate China. That hubris will only hurt you in the long run. Half or more of the stuff in those “sophisticated” computers is sourced in China.
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    I think you're reading the wrong meaning into this particular word. I would take the term 'sophisticated market' to refer to a market that is established and has largely passed the initial saturation phase. There will a number of different actors in the market competing on axes other than "who can offer the most product for the least money," with more complexity in trade as participants' marketing and sales strategies evolve, or as consumer behaviour starts to be affected by other forces. In this sense, China is a less sophisticated market – that's not a problem or a negative, it's just a different stage of market development. It's reasonable to point out that sales behaviour will be different for that market as a result.
  - pdpi 9y ago
    People don't tend to be equally sophisticated buyers across all product categories. Mac usage is definitely a metric for buyer sophistication, when we're talking about Mac sales!
chronice70 9y ago
Most of China doesn't have internet. I don't know what your definition of sophisticated is.
- robin_reala 9y ago
  Wikipedia has Chinese internet usage at 50.3%, so to be accurate a majority of Chinese people now have internet access: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...
  - ktta 9y ago
    I think 'internet' includes any one of the services of the big three. That's hardly the internet usage we have in mind.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      I don’t imagine internet usage stats show a rosy picture anywhere.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  China has 3x as many internet users as the US. India also has more internet users. So yeah, percentage wise they may be lower, but that's still a billion folks between those two countries alone.
  - brianpgordon 9y ago
    Yeah, and rural Indians have to use peer-to-peer networks to download their apps because service is so spotty and expensive. That's materially different from an "internet user" in Western Europe or Japan or the United States.
sah2ed 9y ago
I think the grandparent could have characterized China as an "emerging market" relative to say the US which is a "developed market".

threeseed 9y ago

The Mac is stagnating ? They dropped the ball on the MacPro but everything else saw evolutionary upgrades this year. The MacBook Pro is the 2nd generation of this design which usually see more people upgrading to. And to be fair it's a dramatic upgrade over older models.

torstenvl 9y ago
Most Mac products saw evolutionary downgrades since 2015.
- threeseed 9y ago
  That's an opinion not a statement of fact. The fact is that Mac sales are growing which contradicts your opinion. And as the owner of a MacBook Pro 2015 and 2017 which I both use everyday I would disagree with your opinion.
  - torstenvl 9y ago
    "That's an opinion not a statement of fact." That is not accurate. The MBP keyboard, for example, is objectively worse, both ergonomically and due to quality control issues. https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/21/macbook-pro-keyboard-problems/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/21/macbook-pro-keyboard-problems... https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston-macbook-keyboard https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston-macboo... "The fact is that Mac sales are growing which contradicts your opinion." This is a non sequitur. Popularity is not a definitive measure of quality. Beyond that, Mac sales are down from 2015 in every single quarter. Q1 5519 5312 5374 Q2 4563 4034 4199 Q3 4796 4252 4292 Q4 5709 4886 5386 https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-ma... https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy17-q4/Q4FY17DataSummary.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy17-q4/Q4FY17DataSummar...
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      You don’t understand what objective means. For example- everyone I know with one LOVES the new keyboard. Myself included: for me it’s the best laptop keyboard I’ve used, period. That alone tears your point apart but it’s also telling that you picked 2015 (one of the peak sales years for Macs in the last decade). You either deliberately intended to mislead or you just don’t actually understand how market fluctuations work.