Let me just go on record and say that I don’t like the new MacBook Pro. It doesn’t do justice to the four years of waiting that we had to do for an upgrade. And it most certainly isn’t worth the exorbitant price!
I am not the only one who thinks so. There are several others who are equally disappointed with the new MacBook Pro. And yet, the device has outsold every competing laptop in just five days.
New data from Slice Intelligence, a data mining company, shows that the new MacBook Pro is kicking some serious ass in the sales department.
Here’s how Apple’s latest laptop is demolishing the competition
- It has set a new record for online sales of a consumer electronic good.
- It has sold more than Dell XPS 13 and 15 put together in 10 months.
- It has sold nearly four times the sales of Microsoft’s Surface Book laptop.
- It has sold about 80% of the sales figures recorded by MacBooks in 2015 and 2016 combined. Again, all the MacBooks. Combined!
For a personal computer, that is a lot of records to break in less than a week, and Apple will be mighty pleased with this performance because, frankly, the reviews of the new MacBook Pro weren’t all that encouraging. There’s also the fact that Apple is looking for a strong contender as its core product now that the iPhone is battling a global slump in demand.
Having said that, though, not all is golden in Appleland. The report from Slice Intelligence goes on to point out a very dangerous trend for Apple —
Nearly 40% of previous Mac owners from 2014 have gone on to switch sides to a Windows PC/laptop!
The bar-graph above shows what brands got how much of the Mac users’ market share. As you can see, Apple has been able to retain only 60% of its original user base from 2014. The remaining 40% has hopped towards the Windows camp.
Dell and Asus lead the charts by bagging 7% of the users each. Acer and HP aren’t far behind either. The remaining fit into the category titled “Other” at the bottom, which is a combination of all the other brands selling Windows laptop out of the box. Remember, a lot of top brands (HP, Dell, etc.) also sell laptops without Windows pre-installed. They come with DOS out of the box. So this chart is definitely a bit off.
And that’s the problem with this data set on the whole: it’s off!
Not a lot, perhaps, but it is a bit off. The reason is the way the data is collected. Slice Intelligence doesn’t have direct access to Apple’s numbers (duh!) so it relies on scanning the emails of its clients (legally) and looking for receipts/order confirmations of new MacBooks.
It has arrived at this figure by scanning the emails of 4.4 million online shoppers.
Now, I am not saying that this data is fake or inaccurate. However, the way Slice has arrived at these figures is certainly prone to misrepresentation. So while there’s no doubt that the new MacBook Pro has been performing really well, we still cannot say with 100% certainty that this is how well they’re doing!
Which brings me to my final question:
How is Apple selling this laptop?
Given the lack of enthusiasm shown by “pro” users — people who are MacBook Pro’s target group — it’s really surprising that Apple is managing to sell this much. I would like to clarify that the numbers mentioned here are for “total value of sales” and not “total volume of sales”.
So when the data says Apple has “outsold” its competitors, it means that “Apple has earned more money selling the new MacBook Pros than the competitors,” and not that “Apple has actually sold more units than the competition”.
Be that as it may, there’s still no denying that these are mind-boggling figures, something that Tim Cook will definitely be proud to look.
