4 ms·

I'm absolutely sure, yes, especially if we're talking about the EU alone (but I'd prefer to argue for Europe as a whole), that the market for high-end laptops i

by kick 6y ago

I'm absolutely sure, yes, especially if we're talking about the EU alone (but I'd prefer to argue for Europe as a whole), that the market for high-end laptops is significantly smaller. Eastern Europe is an order of magnitude poorer, and is the reason Europe's population is higher than the USA's (that said, there is a reason I initiated with "America"; these customizations are also offered in Canada, and North America is conventionally considered a single market). Especially when considering localizations that have to be made, and that the most valuable European countries require you get physical technical goods certified per-country (mainly looking at Germany here), and that they're getting taxed more, the margin that you can get from Europe is much smaller already than in America. It doesn't make sense to offer the same extent of customization (which, too, lessens margin) as in America.

james-mcelwain 6y ago
Was curious so looked this up -- the North American market is bigger than the EU by ~50 million people.
- kick 6y ago
  It's even more apparent when you compare them by GDP.
- dubcanada 6y ago
  Canada doesn't have Lenovo with Linux preinstalled (only Windows & Chrome OS) on their product list. I would assume Mexico and the other islands are also excluded. So it's really only US vs EU.
  - kick 6y ago
    It seems like it's changed from about two years ago; really strange.
- close04 6y ago
  Then again the North American market is ~500 million, the European market is ~750 million. Also the current statistics (I linked to them in a comment below) suggest Linux usage in North America at ~1.5%, and in Europe at ~2%. This suggests higher usage in Europe.
ascar 6y ago
US plus Canada is just 23% larger than EU by GDP [1]. Based on PPP it's 20% [2]. Considering we are talking about ~20 trillion in GDP and very similar PPP, that hardly seems to be a large enough difference to give your "absolute sure" statement merit. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...
- kick 6y ago
  Look at median household income to get a better picture of the market for high-end laptops; what your customers have to spend is a better way to figure out how big your market is than raw bodies or statistics that can be heavily-influenced by single entities. Buying a laptop that's 3% of your household's yearly income is a ridiculous financial decision, and given that most of Lenovo's business laptops start at near that range for your average person in significant amounts of countries in the EU, I'd wager that the market is smaller. You make a good point though in that my mention of GDP elsewhere in this thread was mostly irrelevant, though; thanks for helping me refine this argument.
  - close04 6y ago
    You're making a lot of assumptions based on arbitrarily chosen and only tangentially relevant criteria, and superficial analysis. I'm absolutely sure you have no reason to be absolutely sure the second you implied the numbers I linked to must be wrong but your back of the napkin calculation must be correct. One more data point: Apple has a 30% higher market share in NA than in Europe. ChromeOS has a ~5 times higher market share in NA. This goes out of everyone else's market share.
    - kick 6y ago
      Most of your comments in this thread have been dull and poorly-conceived strawmanning with ad hominem interlaced. If you don't see how "income of population" relates to "What citizens will spend money on," you're surely joking. I'm going to respond to you entirely here, because I dislike responding to the same person making variations of the same comment in multiple places. Here's the important bit of your other comment: You brought up population, GDP, average income, etc. None of these explicitly support your claim, half of them actually work against it. Here's the entire comment, just for fairness: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22970804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22970804 Note that one of these is a blatant lie; I was not the person who brought up population in this thread, and I've done nothing but point out reasons as to why it's not a perfect representation of the market. I already admit that GDP was largely a mistake to bring up when I can make the point better and easier with average income. Your accusation of using any "back of the napkin calculation" is similarly ridiculous. Every single number I've cited is trivially verifiable to anyone with an internet connection. You've been repeating "Linux market share is higher in Europe!", and sure, you've given a source for that. Market-share, however, is not market-size, as I've repeatedly said in this thread. To demonstrate it in a simple fashion so you can't avoid what I'm saying anymore: 100% of a market of 10 is less than 1% of a market of 1,000,000,000. "X has a higher share of the market in Europe than it does the US!" means very little on its own. If the market in Europe is smaller than the United States, which isn't particularly controversial (that the entirety of the PC market in the US is just slightly smaller than the entirety of it in EMEA is fairly strong evidence [1]), the US is the bigger market, regardless of how much you repeat the market-share claim. Especially when comparing luxury markets like high-end computing gear, what the population can spend is a significant factor in how big the market is: the United States' median person & median household has more to spend than the median person & household in most countries of Europe. This is not controversial whatsoever, and is trivially verifiable. [2] [3] [1] Gartner's quarterly reports on it for the past decade; linking ten years of them would make this comment too large, but if you search their site with the query "PC shipments", you'll get the data. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income#States_and_territories_ranked_by_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... [3] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Living_conditions_in_Europe_-_income_distribution_and_income_inequality https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

by kick 6y ago

james-mcelwain 6y ago

Was curious so looked this up -- the North American market is bigger than the EU by ~50 million people.

kick 6y ago
It's even more apparent when you compare them by GDP.
dubcanada 6y ago
Canada doesn't have Lenovo with Linux preinstalled (only Windows & Chrome OS) on their product list. I would assume Mexico and the other islands are also excluded. So it's really only US vs EU.
- kick 6y ago
  It seems like it's changed from about two years ago; really strange.
close04 6y ago
Then again the North American market is ~500 million, the European market is ~750 million. Also the current statistics (I linked to them in a comment below) suggest Linux usage in North America at ~1.5%, and in Europe at ~2%. This suggests higher usage in Europe.

ascar 6y ago

US plus Canada is just 23% larger than EU by GDP [1]. Based on PPP it's 20% [2]. Considering we are talking about ~20 trillion in GDP and very similar PPP, that hardly seems to be a large enough difference to give your "absolute sure" statement merit. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

kick 6y ago
Look at median household income to get a better picture of the market for high-end laptops; what your customers have to spend is a better way to figure out how big your market is than raw bodies or statistics that can be heavily-influenced by single entities. Buying a laptop that's 3% of your household's yearly income is a ridiculous financial decision, and given that most of Lenovo's business laptops start at near that range for your average person in significant amounts of countries in the EU, I'd wager that the market is smaller. You make a good point though in that my mention of GDP elsewhere in this thread was mostly irrelevant, though; thanks for helping me refine this argument.
- close04 6y ago
  You're making a lot of assumptions based on arbitrarily chosen and only tangentially relevant criteria, and superficial analysis. I'm absolutely sure you have no reason to be absolutely sure the second you implied the numbers I linked to must be wrong but your back of the napkin calculation must be correct. One more data point: Apple has a 30% higher market share in NA than in Europe. ChromeOS has a ~5 times higher market share in NA. This goes out of everyone else's market share.
  - kick 6y ago
    Most of your comments in this thread have been dull and poorly-conceived strawmanning with ad hominem interlaced. If you don't see how "income of population" relates to "What citizens will spend money on," you're surely joking. I'm going to respond to you entirely here, because I dislike responding to the same person making variations of the same comment in multiple places. Here's the important bit of your other comment: You brought up population, GDP, average income, etc. None of these explicitly support your claim, half of them actually work against it. Here's the entire comment, just for fairness: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22970804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22970804 Note that one of these is a blatant lie; I was not the person who brought up population in this thread, and I've done nothing but point out reasons as to why it's not a perfect representation of the market. I already admit that GDP was largely a mistake to bring up when I can make the point better and easier with average income. Your accusation of using any "back of the napkin calculation" is similarly ridiculous. Every single number I've cited is trivially verifiable to anyone with an internet connection. You've been repeating "Linux market share is higher in Europe!", and sure, you've given a source for that. Market-share, however, is not market-size, as I've repeatedly said in this thread. To demonstrate it in a simple fashion so you can't avoid what I'm saying anymore: 100% of a market of 10 is less than 1% of a market of 1,000,000,000. "X has a higher share of the market in Europe than it does the US!" means very little on its own. If the market in Europe is smaller than the United States, which isn't particularly controversial (that the entirety of the PC market in the US is just slightly smaller than the entirety of it in EMEA is fairly strong evidence [1]), the US is the bigger market, regardless of how much you repeat the market-share claim. Especially when comparing luxury markets like high-end computing gear, what the population can spend is a significant factor in how big the market is: the United States' median person & median household has more to spend than the median person & household in most countries of Europe. This is not controversial whatsoever, and is trivially verifiable. [2] [3] [1] Gartner's quarterly reports on it for the past decade; linking ten years of them would make this comment too large, but if you search their site with the query "PC shipments", you'll get the data. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income#States_and_territories_ranked_by_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... [3] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Living_conditions_in_Europe_-_income_distribution_and_income_inequality https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...