Gartner Says Mac Market Share to Double in Three Years

Tucked away in 10 predictions about the future of the tech sector, Gartner had some lofty forecasts for one company in particular: Apple. Specifically, the firm said it expects Apple to more than double its PC market share in the U.S. and Western Europe by 2011. With the company's current share hovering around 6 percent -- a number itself that has doubled in the last three years -- that means Apple would have a 12 percent PC market share in the U.S. by 2011.

Interestingly, this future share snatching will result not only from Apple's continued success with Mac sales, but also from "the failures of the rest of the industry," Gartner predicts.

According to the report:

Apple is challenging its competitors with software integration that provides ease of use and flexibility, continuous and more frequent innovation in hardware and software, and an ecosystem that focuses on interoperability across multiple devices (such as iPod and iMac cross-selling.)

That's some high praise, to be sure. But it's even more remarkable when you consider that, as the Macalope points out today, two of Gartner's analysts actually called on Apple to entirely abandon the hardware business and license Mac OS X to Dell a year ago.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Gartner's expectations are unreasonable, especially with Apple coming off a quarter where it sold 2,319,000 Macs and saw 44 percent unit growth and 47 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter.

But it continues to amuse me that these votes of confidence would never have happened just a few years ago. It becomes even more amusing when you consider that Apple's recent successes can largely be attributed to the fact that the company does NOT obsess over market share numbers. As Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe has noted before, Apple's overall business value keeps going up because it focuses on customers and profits…in that order. Not market share.

In Howe's words:

For over a decade now, they've been the most profitable computer maker in the U.S. And while Apple has since diversified into other markets, that one metric says more about their success than any other.

Apple's current stock price may not reflect it, but the company continues to have a lot of momentum behind it. What the current stock price does show, however, is what these increasingly high expectations can do, if say, Apple falls short of meeting those heightened expectations. Under promising and over delivering (Apple's typical MO) can be a dangerous game, especially when you involve Wall Street. Still, if Steve Jobs had to choose between more market share or bigger profits, my money would be on profits every time.

Photo: Flickr/mdumlao98