The chances are pretty good that Apple can significantly expand its market share with the new M1 Macs. Although Cupertino has so far only provided the entry-level models with in-house chips, Apple is already demonstrating where the journey is headed in terms of performance and efficiency. The box office hit MacBook Air, supposedly the most popular notebook in the range back in the days of Intel, plays a central role. It can be clearly seen how much praise and approval Apple receives for the device, which, despite passive cooling, does not have to shy away from comparison with desktop computers or performance notebooks. However, the positive reviews do not only come from those close to Apple; instead, magazines that are far from technology are also amazed. The concentrated computing power, paired with impressive battery life, causes astonishment everywhere.
Japan: market shares almost double
In the past, the Mac mini was not exactly the model series that Apple considered with particularly frequent updates. But now the smallest desktop Mac has started and thanks to active cooling it can deliver even more performance than the MacBook Air – which has to regulate itself down at some point due to heat. At least for Japan, the first figures are now available on how customers are reacting to the new offer. According to the market researcher BCN Retail, Apple catapulted itself to first place in the desktop area. Between August and November, Apple still held a 15 percent market share, but the Mac mini went on sale suddenly for more than 27 percent.
Gray bar: Apple
Snapshot, but more can come of it
The results are of course slightly distorted, as a large number of users interested in technology have now struck – the said 27 percent are therefore only a snapshot. Nevertheless, it can be said with great certainty that a new Mac mini with the latest Intel chips and 20 to 50 percent more performance would certainly not have taken the same course. Should Apple score points with such impressive performance data across all future series and also be able to set the Pro models apart from the market environment, Apple’s market share should develop noticeably upwards. Even if only data from Japan is currently available and this is possibly only a particularly strong outlier, Apple probably has a comfortable starting position.