Edible Apple

By Sarah Petit:

Tim Cook kicked off today’s keynote by highlighting the roaring success of the Mac and OS X Lion (sorry, we couldn’t help it).

After starting off with an obligatory blurb from Walt Mossberg stating that OS X Lion is the “best operating system out there”, Cook dropped a number of interesting data points highlighting the tremendous success of Apple’s latest OS X update and accompanying Mac sales.

First, Cook compared the infiltration of OS X Lion amongst Mac users to the penetration of Windows 7 amongst the Windows installed base. Whereas it took Windows 20 weeks to reach a 10% penetration rate, OS  X Lion was running on 10% of the Mac customer base in only two weeks. Overall, OX X Lion sales have already reached 6 million since first launching this past July.

With respect to the Mac, Cook was quick to heap praise upon the Air, explaining: “It’s thin and light and beautiful and wicked fast. Our customers love it and our competitors have been trying to copy it.”

Cook went on to call the MacBook Pro and the iMac the top selling notebook and desktop PCs in the US. Further illustrating the clip at which the % of Mac users are growing, Cook said that the Mac this year enjoyed 23% growth from last year, compared to just 4% year-over-year growth for the the rest of the PC industry. Driving the point home, Cook said that Mac growth has outpaced the PC industry in every single quarter for the past 5 years.

Overall, the installed base of Mac users now totals 58 million worldwide, and 60 million is just around the corner.

As of this August, Cook said that Apple’s market share sits at a comfortable 23%. Consequently, Cook explained, 77% of the public are buying other computers which gives Apple a lot of room to grow.

Put simply, Apple’s Mac business is doing exceedingly well.