Top 5 Vendors, United States PC Shipments
Third Quarter 2007 (Preliminary)
(Units Shipments are in thousands)

Rank	Vendor	3Q07 Shipments	Market Share	3Q06 Shipments	Market Share	3Q07/3Q06 Growth
1	Dell	5,010	28.0%	5,260	30.9%	-4.8%
2	HP	4,346	24.3%	3,718	21.8%	16.9%
3	Apple	1,127	6.3%	973	5.7%	15.9%
4	Toshiba	940	5.2%	805	4.7%	16.7%
5	Gateway	865	4.8%	1,009	5.9%	-14.2%
	Others	5,633	31.4%	5,272	30.9%	6.9%
	All Vendors	17,922	100.0%	17,037	100.0%	5.2%

The table above was published by IDC yesterday and shows US market share for the top 5 vendors (note: there was a global table as well, but Apple was not broken out in that table as it is not in the top 5 vendors globally.) I went looking for this information because I was struck by the photo posted below:

College Class at the Univeristy of Missouri (click to enlarge)


This is a non-random, small demographic, a single lecture hall with a single class at the University of Missouri, but, do you think the market share is greater than 6.3% in that classroom (note that the little white dots on the laptop lids indicate that the computer is an Apple.) Also, it’s interesting to observe that this is a very young crowd, I wonder what Apple marketshare is by age group? I’m tending to think it’s skewed toward youth. When I look at Apple’s market cap of $150B I tend to think “this stock is way over-valued” but then I see an image like this and think: if Apple is dominating the under 25-crowd and the total marketshare is only 6.3%, and the iPhone and iPod continue their growth path, isn’t it possible that Apple could double or triple it’s market footprint over the next few years? An interesting thought…

What do you think, is Apple fairly valued? Over-valued? Under-valued? What do you think the marketshare might look like in 5 years time?

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