I think credit should go to Apple's marketing team along with their design team. It's their sleek designs that allow their marketing to exist.

Umm, duh, all they sell are 'premium' PCs, and most 'premium' Windows machines are hand built by enthusiasts rather than OEMs.

I dont think thats true... just how many of us have a nice rig, that you put in at least $1500 in ???
I know a lot of people just on my base with computers they built themselves... there is no way apple can track number of people who build PCs themselves, and people who are buying PCs from companies who make custom PCs- Because there a lot of these small companies.... I bet they only looked at numbers from big companies like Dell and HP, and thats about it.....

Now are you talking "PC" as in a desktop computer? or PC as in a laptop? your article mentions both.

A lot of premium desktops are assembled by end users from parts. its rather hard to do that with a laptop. (not impossible -- just hard).

b-unit is thinking along the same lines as i was....

9/10 premium machines owned are Apple machines.... well 9/10 apple pc's are 1000 or above.. so, they are premium.

Thats like saying 9/10 porches cost a lot.

Isnt this dumb? i mean this should be a plus for PC users as it means its cheaper and they are smarter for buying something thats as strong if not stronger and cheaper at the same time.. and thats even without OC'ing.. for a site that should be PRO OC's and pro hardware for enthusiasts .. THG seems to be really going out of its way to kiss up to Apple...?

and when you say over $1000 is "premium" then you have to include everything Apple sells because they only sell products that are $1000+. It just goes to show how much cheaper PCs are than Macs. Few PCs cost more than $1000.

Apples are too over priced for what they have inside. You pay for the glossy looks and unfamiliar operating system. Apple is just doing so well because people like to be different and buy something like a Mac to be better than others. My custom rig will smoke the highest end Mac out there. Why spend $1400 on something to go on facebook compared to $500 or less on a Windows based PC that does the same.

Welcome to the other half of Apples Marketing team, The Media!

So any computer worth more than $1000 is considered a premium computer... I didn't realize I was building premium PCs for 6 years now! This is nice they have the market share but how many did they actually sell? Just because you sell 9 laptops and HP sells 1 doesn't mean market share is relevant.

And Bugatti has 100% of the premium car market share ($1.7MM+)

Proves my long time thought: apples are nice computers for people too stupid to build one.

Whats so premium about apple products other than the price? XDXDXD

Who else sells top quality pre-built items for over 1000$ these days. Most people can't get away with selling that kind of gear.

People with 1+K$ computers usually build them. So I completely believe it.

Pointless article. It's obvious Apple dominates the market of $1,000+ machines when all they sell are $1,000+ machines. It's like saying BMW dominates the market of premium cars but that makes up what percentage of the auto industry again? Enough to prove how pointless it looks to the other 90+ percent of auto owners.

If you are going to buy a PC over $1000 and don't game or do processor/graphics chip intensive task, you might as well get a Mac. If not for performance, you are buying battery life, lightness, and most of all cachet. When people willing to spend over $1000 are given the choice of a Mac or Windows PC without any particular need for performance, they are most likely going to choose the Mac. It's not that it is any better than the Windows alternative, only that it has more cachet and really now down side when competitors in the premium market such as the Adamo offer little more in benefits. Simply put it, if performance is not a main priority but you are willing to spend over $1000, a Mac will have few disadvantages when compared to a PC, leaving Cachet as the main attraction and giving Apple such a sizable portion of the premium computer market.

PC as in "personal computer", as opposed to "IBM compatible PC" which traditionally ahs excluded Apple.

As far as I know there is no definition of PC that refers exclusively to desktops or notebooks. The article is discussing the ASP as a whole for both desktops and notebooks.

uh....this is what NPD comes up with? Find a real marketing data company, like RDA Group or JD Power.

Apples are over priced.

This makes me laugh - so as far as I can tell the only criteria for 'premium' is price, then I'm paying an Apple 'premium' to get slower/more outdated hardware with the Apple OS for a higher price.

Given that the hardware in that windows machine at the lower ASP is probably equvalent or better than the hardware in the apple machine, that just goes to show that you're paying for the industrial design and OS, nothing more.

We (myself included) complain about the cost of windows OS (speaking mostly from recent articles on W7 pricing) however when seen in this light, we should be delighted - to 'build' an apple machine, i'd spend about 600$ on hardware and 800$ for the OS (ok we'll kick in 200$ for the 'industrial design') so that means my copy of the Apple OS is really costing me 600$ - i'll take the windows cost of 110$ anyday over that!!

More reinforcement for my current opinion - Mac's are nice, but not at THAT price!!

ROFLOL

Saying that Apple has a 91% share of PC sales >$1000 just means that Apple's computers are more expensive than non-Apple computers. It doesn't mean that their computers are better or that they have sold more of them.

What you ought to compare is the number of $1000 PCs sold, as well as the quality and specs of each group. You will then see that Apple merely has a 91% share of overpriced-and-sub-par-PC sales.

I agree, the only thing premium is their price. PC enthusiasts can build an immaculate PC for half the cost of what a mac equivalent would be.

Where the heck did they get their statistics from? knowing that most people custom build their pcs and apart from that there are more small business with custom built pcs. You can't get these untrue figure from the big names like Dell, HP and so fort..... not much people buy pc from them anymore except for companies... oh, almost all the companies use Windows any way.

Most us here have custom built pc worth more than £1000 if u r from the UK. we build for speed and graphics capable of running anything u think of triple of what mac users could ever dream of for £3000.

So i say rubbish report and no credit for Apple, anyone?

So if mac is 12% of the market that means and they would maybe take up a mere 1-2% of the pc cheaper than 1000 bucks?, number is not for sure seeing as I would need to know what percent premium computers are of total pc sales.

Too me that just shows that the average computer user doesn't buy macs, of course they didn't include home built systems.

I consider a premium laptop something I would play my games on. In that respect, Apple FAIL. Even if we start to consider a fairly powerful notebook that would serve as a desktop replacement for most people, many of those are at $999.99, while an apple equivalent tacks on another $500 bucks at least.

exactly, my rig is worth a little over $1000 and I built it myself.

If you are an apple user, you have to kick yourself over the fact that your 'premium' computer is made from the exact same parts that the $560 ones are.

You know if I boiled a person down to its primitive elements and minerals it would be worth $3.50. But clearly all men are not created equal. I don't give a damn that a pc's processor might be faster.

I love my mac. And I am glad I have a job that always me to afford it. I built my own computers for over 10 years and now that I have 2 kids and no spare time. The last thing I want or need to be doing is tinkering with a RAID array. I want my computer to be thing (check) great screen (check) enough power to run aperture or lightroom (check) long battery life (check).

This article reminds of a young kid in a fully decked out Subaru STI pretending that the Ferrari is a POS because the STI is soooo much faster.

Duh indeed. My system is probably what would be considered premium but it wasn't sold as PC but components. I'd say monitor and all, it's got $1700 worth of parts in it. Very few OEM's sell premium computers cause most people prefer to build them themselves.

This is true , figures are wrong , in the premium market when it comes to desktop windows based machines you can't trust these numbers most ( I would bet 70%) of "premium" pc are hand built not bought from OEM ... I would never buy a premium desktop from DEll or Alienware ... Most of us like to handpick components... When it comes to notebooks it's apple's sleek design that attracts mindless buyers not that the marketing team is doing a bad job but they get an easy ride.(it's expensive , it's shiny thus it's cool )

so your basically saying that 90% of the premium pc market are idiot's? Its all basically the same hardware anyway nowadays. If it wasn't for stupid software being mac exclusive then I think apple would have 2 stick to phones and ipods. Think about all of the professionals who have purchased rooms full of macs. Not because they wanted too but because they had to in order to use specific software. If the professionals didn't need them then there would only be a handful of self righteous douchbags,and people who are afraid of windows because their windows 98 pc's crashed a few times in the late 90's or they got a virus. the only people who should use macs imo are children & senior citizens. And I will slap the next mac user that claims they dont crash, or have hardware incompatibilities, or dont get virus's. I fix laptops everyday and let me tell you macs have nicer shells and thats about it.

I think people here are vastly overestimating the number of people who would build a pc for over 1000 bucks. A lot of people want something powerful, for gaming for example, but decide to buy a brand name simply because its much easier.

the only people who should use macs imo are children & senior citizens. Seriously?

I write software everyday and I will tell you pc's have faster hardware but I would slit my wrists if I had to code in Windows everyday.