Can Apple gain significant market share?
Truthfully, not nearly as fast as they are gaining mind share. Apple can only produce so many computers a year. If 800,000 iMacs sold in 4-1/2 months accounts for 7% of the personal computer market, and if Apple currently has about 10% of the PC market, that means they are producing approximately 3,000,000 computers a year. (It also means the entire new computer market is about 30 million computers a year.) But Apple is working around the clock to build computers. They have pretty much stretched their capacity as far as it can go. Unless they outsource assembly or build another factory, Apple may never grow past 10-12% market share. Of course, there’s more to the computer world than market share. There may be an installed base of 25-30 million Macs already in use, ranging in age from weeks to well over a decade. And most of these users still buy software and peripherals for their old Macs.
