The pressure to get figures out quickly causes the likes of Dataquest Inc to put out instant market share estimates at the end of each year which leave an awful lot to be desired – there was an astonishing $11,000m difference between the company’s estimate of the size of the world personal computer market in 1992 when it issued preliminary figures in January 1993, and in April or May, when it had refined its figures to settle on a final number. This vast discrepancy was spotted by an eagle-eyed Computergram reader when he compared the Dataquest figures we published in January this year with those from January 1993 (CI Nos 2,327, 2080). All of which means that all such figures need to be taken with a very large pinch of salt. Dataquest reckons that it now has final figures – by number, not by value – for the US market alone – final worldwide figures are still to come, and it claims that Apple Computer Inc was the US market leader in 1993 for the second consecutive year, contrary to published reports by other market research companies, which gave IBM the crown. It reckons that Compaq Computer Corp more than doubled its US market share to 10.5% from 5.1% last year, shipping 1.544m machines against 644,000 a year ago. It reckons that IBM and Apple also each increased their market share, with IBM at 13.9%, up from 11.7% – 2.063m machines against 1.465m, and Apple at 14.1%, up from 12.2%, with 2,086m machines, up from 1.530m. The big three had 38.5%, up from 29%.
