Apple Market Share Declined Over 50% During Jobs' Current Reign

Apple's share of the worldwide PC market has tumbled from 4.6 percent in 1996, the year before Jobs returned, to just 2.2 percent in 2005... Gartner puts Apple's 1996 share at 4.6 percent, IDC at 5.1 percent. Market share in 2005 was 2.2 percent from Gartner and 2.3 percent from IDC... Apple's market share peaked at 15.8 percent in 1980

``It's a puzzle for sure, to the average Mac user,'' says Leander Kahney, author of the 2004 book ``The Cult of Mac'' and an editor at Wired News in San Francisco. ``They are baffled that more people don't use the Mac.''

Apple is somewhat stronger in U.S. consumer market share, with Gartner giving Apple 5.8 percent in 2005 and IDC at 2.9 percent.

It's also worth noting that Apple's worldwide market share did move up slightly last year from 1.9 percent in 2004, according to Gartner, or 2.0 percent, according to IDC.

That's because Mac sales are exceeding industry growth rates. Apple shipped 38 percent more Macs in the fiscal year ended Sept. 24, 2005, than in the prior year, and shipments were up 20 percent in the last three months of 2005.

The Mac mini, introduced last year at $499 and now starting at $599, is no doubt stoking the trend by giving newcomers an inexpensive way to join the faithful.

Sales could get another boost later this year when Apple is expected to introduce an upgrade of its aging iBook consumer notebook computer, and from Microsoft's decision last week to delay the launch of the consumer version of its new Windows Vista operating system into early 2007.

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