How popular are Apple Computers in non-US countries?

I'm curious about how popular Apple computers are outside the United States. Are they more or less popular? My guess will be that the US has the greatest percentage of Apple users than any other countries. What makes Apple more/less popular in other countries?

 

It depends on the country. Off the top of my head I know that Macs have long been popular in Japan, although that popularity has depended on various factors (for example, when Apple was making their ultraportable laptops like the PowerBook Duo or PowerBook 2400, those were very popular models in Japan).

As far as what makes them popular in some countries and not others, it depends a fair amount on Apple's presence in that particular country, their local marketing, etc. I believe Apple used to have some pretty heavy focuses in Europe, especially France and Germany. Apple still has an Apple Expo in Paris each year which is usually a major event.

But if Apple doesn't have much of a presence in a country, and that also means less support, less local retail presence, etc. Things like being able to easily get repairs, etc. are important factors.

Looking at Apple's own retail presence worldwide, it looks like they have a number of Apple Stores in the UK and Japan, for example:

http://www.apple.com/retail/storelist/

I'm really not quite sure on what the current popularity is though in various countries.

-Zadillo

 

not very popular...people in places like Taiwan get loads of free stuff when they buy PC laptops, and i think macs are more expensive there as comparing to cheap PC laptops with similar specs. Brands like Asus and Acer are really good, better than Dell and much CHEAPER than Apple.

 

It depends by the country...I don't see much/many (bad grammar ) Apple computers in Asia (but I never visited Japan, so I don't know (reference to zadillo's post)). But here in Canada I see lots of Macs, and I know Macs are pretty popular in the UK too.

 

I'm kind of surprised that Macs are popular in Japan like Zadillo said. I thought that Japan would be dominated by Japanese manufacturers such as Sony and Fujitsu notebooks. But then again, Japanese people are all about style over functionality (not saying OS X isn't functional).

 

Well, again, there are multiple factors.

Also, Japan IS dominated by companies like Sony and Fujitsu; Apple does well in Japan, but it's not like they dominate the market there.

A lot of that has to do with a long history of building support in Japan, and especially making products that fit well into the Japanese market (especially with Apple's early focus on small laptops, and their continued history of all-in-one computer designs, and compact systems like the G4 Cube and the Mac mini). Given the space constraints, Apple's focus in these areas helped them (I believe Sony actually helped Apple with the design and manufacturing of the PowerBook 2400). And certainly Apple's design focus has been a factor in their relative popularity there as well.

As in other countries, you'll also find that Macs are popular in the creative community - musicians, artists, etc. You'll also often find Macs or Mac-like systems show up in Japanese anime (and in some cases, blatant references, such as in the show "Serial Experiments Lain").

But things like focusing on full Japanese OS support from an early stage, etc. have been important too.

-Zadillo

 

I can say that Apple does well here in France, and when I was in the UK, it seemed to do even better, there. In Australia, it does well too, esp. since its move to intel. Alot of big department & electronic stores stock apple mac's and ipod's now. There are also alot of authorised Apple reseller stores. In fact one just opened up down the road (50 m) from my apartment. So I would go as far to say that based on physical presence, apple would be #1, then maybe HP, sony and Toshiba, with ASUS bring up the rear.
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Apple isn't really that popular in Japan, and it isn't that popular in the U.S either. But it is definitely growing and growing.

My girlfriend in Osaka just bought a Mac book recently, she is liking it a lot so far.

 

I think when talking about popularity here we mean relative popularity (i.e. where it has some sort of presence/active user bass vs. countries where there's almost no presence or userbase)

 

Kuwait: All corporate pcs are windows, except for advertising agencies and newspapers/magazines. Most users are pc users. Pretty much because unfortunately it is easier to get pirated software on windows. Apples have been popping around everywhere in the last couple of years and is getting to be much popular in Kuwait. My first mac was a g4 powerbook, I wasn't very impressed, the laptop was a used one and not in very good condition. Later on, I got a macbook so that I can run both osx and windows, I removed bootcamp on day 1. I loved osx and still prefer it. If it wasn't for my addiction to thinkpads, I'd be all Mac.

 

Brasil: Macs are popular with graphics artists/photographers/musicians and so on, but is a niche market. I've yet to meet someone in person with an Apple machine (know a few people from webforums though). Until before the transistion to Intel, they were grossly overpriced, but now, if compared to a similar configured PC notebook from Sony or LG, they cost about the same.

 

Constant Windows Updates and viruses were enough to sway me over to the Mac side. I also love Thinkpads. I just wish they Lenovo would have OS X preinstalled in Thinkpads.

 

Judging by the number of Apple reseller stores that have sprouted over the past year I would say they are “becoming” very popular in Saudi Arabia. In my city, not the capital, we’ve had three resellers open-up and two more are about to pop-up!

I think Apple’s move to Intel, better marketing on a corporate level, and the iPod opened up the eyes of many here to the beauty of Apple.

 

yeah honestly, before the Intel switch, you were paying sooooo much for some pretty weak ass hardware

 

My friend, originally from Hiroshima, bought a Dell after owning an iBook. She regrets it greatly! All I can say is "should have listened to me". But shes had it for a couple of years now and its about time to upgrade. She'll get a Mac this time

A few of my other Japanese friends all love Macs and will be getting them for their next systems. One of my friends got a Core 2 Duo white MacBook free through her job (talk about lucky!) and even though she had just bought one of those super small Sony's with a 12" screen before getting that, she uses the Mac almost exclusively now.

Let's not forget that even though Japanese tend to prefer Japanese brands, Apple has pretty much taken the crown there with the iPod

 

The main market for Apple remains the US, but it is expanding. As others have noted there are several Apple Stores in the UK and Japan, and one just opened in Rome. One thing that "differs" over here (in Europe) is that there are plenty of Mac resellers that aren't actual Apple Stores, but rather "Apple premium reseller" and similar - some of them carry nothing but Apple products and some even style their stores after the Apple Store model.

That said, I wish there would be some more Apple Stores around - the expansion into continental Europe seems slow, only one store there yet (Rome, which only JUST opened). I wonder what the cause of the slow progress is, I would have expected stores in Berlin and Paris a long time ago.

What goes for all of western Europe, however, is that iPods are #1 and the Apple Store online is available and selling pretty well from what I can tell in all the western European countries. I think this is the necessary base that Apple needs to have before they decide how to proceed, if they want to expand their retail presence or not. And the bottom line is that the iPod is helping Apple sell more Macs, especially to students (student discount and the Mac + iPod deal they have sometimes).

Apple TV has received a more mellow response here simply because the iTunes Store doesn't offer tv shows or movies anywhere outside the US - yet. Once that happens, this segment is likely to become larger.

Now, looking at the two countries I have the best insight into (being from one and living in the other):

Sweden: Premium resellers are on the march, more stores are opening all over the country and Apple is gaining market share. Traditionally Macs are mostly used for professional things (publishing, graphics, video, etc) but they are advancing in education (you see many more classrooms with Macs in them now than a few years ago) and the consumer market (many younger people buy a portable Mac, often for studies). I see a good future for Apple here.

Ireland: Strangely, not too much of a presence that I've noticed - there are some premium resellers (O2 come to mind) but I don't think the market share is huge. Yet. With the UK so close, and the market over there being good for Apple, it is likely to spill over more and more. But you never know.

 

I don't know, I'd still argue that point. The PowerPC-based Macs weren't that weak, and certainly held their own.

The need for the Intel switch came because the PowerPC platform was stagnating, especially on the mobile side - there was no "mobile PowerPC G5", and there was no comparison with the efficiency and cool operation of the Pentium M. But before the stagnation, they weren't bad.

But it's not weak ass hardware overall, especially on the desktop side (where Power Mac G5's are still holding their own today, for example).

-Zadillo

 

I think it's all about the software. There are still many PPC apps that require Roseta, but once software developers make the switch to Universal Binary, the Intel CPU should make a pretty big difference.

 

True, although I'm not sure what that exactly has to do with my post. I wasn't arguing that the Intel CPU's aren't good right now. Did you mean when I said that the Power Mac G5 still holds its own? If so, I didn't mean just because Intel-based systems are having to run PPC code in emulation mode; even with universal binaries taken into account, Power Mac G5's still perform pretty well.

I was arguing that for its time, the PowerPC wasn't bad comparitively, but on the mobile side especially it was not advancing any more (the PowerPC G5 was and still is just fine for many things), and there was nothing close in the pipeline to the efficiency of the Pentium M. So Apple definitely made the right choice to switch (the added benefit of being able to run Windows, etc. natively is a nice bonus too).

-Zadillo