Amid all of
Dell's news yesterday, remarks by Michael Dell about longtime rival Apple managed to fly under the radar.
In a question-and-answer session during Dell's annual shareholder meeting, Chairman Dell was asked how he viewed competition from Apple. Dell answered, in part:
Apple certainly has done a very nice job with their products. I think you're going to see a number of new, competitive dynamics in that market ...music services. We've been working with MTV, which has a new service called Urge. That's an exciting space that Apple has done well in, but I would be surprised if they are able to maintain the share they have today over the next ten or 20 years. In terms of competition with Apple (in PCs), our share numbers speak for themselves. Apple is growing, but is still not in the top five in share for computers.
On a worldwide basis, Dell's remarks are true - Apple doesn't crack the top five. But in U.S. market share, according to the latest numbers from Gartner Group Apple is actually ranked fourth. In fact, during the most recent quarter, Apple saw 15.4 percent growth, year-over-year, compared with Dell's 6.3 percent growth.
