22 Million Mac OS X Users

At 10:33 on 06-03-2007, Ian Bridges wrote:
> It really is about time the message that the Mac market is at least
> as big as the Australian market got out there

Actually, the Mac market is bigger than the Australian one. The
_total_ Australian population is about 21 million and I imagine that
there are very few 0-5 year olds who are in the market for software
(though there parents may be). Coupled with the fact that I can't
imagine Australia has 100% computer ownership, I would imagine that
the number of Macs one could be selling software to is larger than
the number of people living in Australia one could be selling
software to. This only underlines your point even more, which is an
interesting and effective way of thinking about market-share.

_________________
=> Jolin

At 8:48 PM -0800 3/6/07, Jolin M Warren wrote:
>I would imagine that
>the number of Macs one could be selling software to is larger than
>the number of people living in Australia one could be selling
>software to.

        Similarly, the populations of Canada and California are each just a
bit under 34 million - so the adult population of these two places is each
about the same as the number of Mac OS X Users. Producing products or
services exclusively for markets of these sizes is clearly possible, and
potentially very profitable.

        However it is probably also true that for many companies, with
limited resources, it may be felt that using those resources to produce
profit in the larger marketspace gives better return on investment than
going after the smaller markets. If serving the small market requires
hiring say ten people, than those ten people will need to produce as much
(or preferably more) income than they would produce if they were hired to
to serve the large market. Of course in a "perfect" company, you have
already hired as many people as needed to completely serve whatever market
you are in, so expanding into other markets would be an obvious next step -
however the computer world is continually changing and growing, so it might
be rare for any company to feel that it has done enough in existing markets
let alone expanding into new ones.

        With all that said, 22 million potential customers would seem to be
large enough to support a complete "ecosystem" of hardware and software
sales and service providers. The problem comes when any of those "small
market" players get big enough to expand into new markets and they start
looking at the larger market potentials, and possibly abandoning their
small market origins.


--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://xri.net/=j-beda> *
* Johann's MostlyMac Computer Consulting - <http://mmcc.beda.ca/> *

On 7-Mar-2007, at 22:46, Johann Beda wrote:
> However it is probably also true that for many companies, with
> limited resources, it may be felt that using those resources to
> produce
> profit in the larger marketspace gives better return on investment
> than
> going after the smaller markets.

Well, the trouble is that's not necessarily true. Certainly that is
the exact opposite of brick and mortar marketing where the key is to
find an unfilled need and fill it. That generally means smaller
markets.

For example, Staples was started by a guy who, if I recall correctly,
couldn't find ink/a ribbon for his printer. There was no one serving
the consumer market for Office Supplies, as all the vendors were
selling to corporations directly. Thus a whole class of store was
invented that now has at least three major national chains.

And, a company marketing a product nationwide would be foolish to
fail to comply with California regulations, thus cutting their
product off from more than 10% of the US population.

But people don't think that way about computers and the mindset still
seems to be that it could all go up in a puff of smoke in 6 months,
so better get as much as you can as fast as you can.

Ian Bridges wrote:
> Living in Australia, this number always interest me - the number of Mac
> users is about the same as the total Australian population.
>
> There are many software companies and other IT businesses that consider it
> worthwhile in terms of sales to set up offices and permanent staff here down
> under, but for some reason don't think it is worth making Mac versions of
> their products. Kinda makes you wonder about the logic of that. You get odd
> reactions from reps at trade shows when you ask them about it.
>
> The rest of the world does business with Australia and sing their praises
> without being derided as "Aussie Fanboys". It really is about time the
> message that the Mac market is at least as big as the Australian market got
> out there, and more companies really looked at the business opportunities
> that represents.

Some population numbers near AU from Wikipedia.
Romania 22,290,000
Yemen 21,925,000
Sri Lanka 20,920,000
Australia 20,780,000
Mozambique 20,765,000
Madagascar 19,235,000
Syria 19,165,000

Doing business in AU for much of the world of business is nice due to:

1. English (like it or not English is the 1st or 2nd language of the
business world.

2. A system of courts and laws that deals with contracts similar to the
rest of the 1st world marketplace.

3. Shared heritage.

Macs vs. Windows are more like the doing business in the other countries
from the point of an American business with a Windows product.