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Topic: Enterprise Software

Half of US households own an Apple product

Summary: About 55 million homes in all that own something bearing the Apple logo on it.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

By for Hardware 2.0 |

According to CNBC's All-American Economic Survey, 51 percent of US households now own at least one Apple product.

See also: How do sales of the new iPad compare to historical sales data for Apple products?

51 percent works out at about 55 million homes in all that own something bearing the Apple logo on it. But it doesn't stop after buying one Apple product. The average household has 1.6 Apple products, but of households that own an Apple product, the average number of products owned goes up to 3, making an estimated 165 million Apple devices in use in American homes today.

There's some interesting stuff to be found when digging through the data:

  • 63 percent of 18-to-34 35-to-49 age groups own an Apple product
  • 50 percent of the 50-to-64 age group own Apple products, while in the 65 and older, this number drops to 26 percent
  • 28 percent of those earning less than $30,000 a year own at least one Apple product, compared to 77 percent of those earning more than $75,000
  • Kids are driving Apple sales, with 61 percent of households with children owning Apple products, compared to 48 percent of homes that don't have children

What we don't know is a breakdown of what these Apple products are. I would hazard a guess that there are a lot of iPod-owning households, give that Apple consistently sells millions of them every quarter. But with over 37 million iPhones and 15 million iPads sold last quarter alone, these post-PC devices must have a place in quite a number of holds in the US.

It's not hard to see how Apple has $100 billion cash in the bank.

Image credit: CNBC

Related:

Topics: Enterprise Software, Apple

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51 comments
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  • I have the

    iA$$ toilet paper dispenser.
    timspublic1@...
    Reply Vote

    • iA$$? Well at least you admit it:)

      Seriously good news. NOW for the other half!!!

      Pagan jim
      James Quinn
      Reply Vote

    • That was low

      even from you.
      athynz
      Reply Vote

  • 1 Apple product in our house

    6 Microsoft products, and 1 Android product (the toaster, I think)
    William Farrel
    Reply Vote

    • That's pretty close...

      to what I have going on at my house. Wife has the iphone... the rest runs on MS hardware/software. No linux that I am aware of.
      kstap
      Reply Vote

  • me too

    does apple sauce count? if so, then i gots two of them.
    databaseben
    Reply Vote

  • Honestly, I could see this shrinking or staying the same

    I could see it peaking or even shrinking...

    I say this because I think many people that own an iPod will eventually get an iPhone but I see that iPod line diminishing.

    As for the computers and tablets, as some buy new computers they sell the old ones.
    slickjim
    Reply Vote

    • iPhone's share in USA market grew to 43% by February, so lets see how thing

      ... will develop. Since iPad sales are projected to rocket even more, household numbers for Apple might even increase.
      DDERSSS
      Reply Vote

      • Does it matter?

        Apple's mothod is hard to beat. Actually make money at all turns. Sale margins good. After sales monies good. Not taking a loss to grow Market Share for what reason exactly? No leaping into the commodity market because "Hey that is what everyone is doing". I can't see it failing even if percentages waiver back and forth over time.

        Pagan jim
        James Quinn
        Reply Vote

    • Or..

      people who've never owned Macs will buy one, and the number will go up.
      msalzberg
      Reply Vote

  • I Would Expect Microsoft Percentage to Be Higher

    I would expect that the percentage of households with a Microsoft product is still higher than this. However, it's quite possible that the percentage with more than perhaps two products is higher with Apple than with Microsoft.

    I own no Apple products at the moment, though there is an old Power Mac at my house that belongs to my brother-in-law. I had installed Linux on it, but I was hoping there might be a way to get it to play full motion video acceptably, and it seems that it would need a better video card than I have available for it. I haven't tried an Nvidia card with the Nouveau driver, though. I'm not sure if that's possible on an old G3 (I think it's a G3 and not a G4, but I'm not sure if I'm recalling correctly).

    I currently have one Android product that I own (Nook Color with Cyanogenmod 7) and one that my company provides for me (Motorola Droid 3). There is one more if you count the old Chinese mini-tablet with the bad battery that I have, but I would need to find a battery that would work for it to be viable again. Actually, that thing would still be pretty useful if you could get decent battery life out of it (the battery life was never really good enough to begin with).

    Edit: Incidentally, I think that the iPod Touch is still a relatively hot item. I would say, yes, that the non-iOS based iPods are in decline at this point, and are generally being passed over for cheaper devices (some of which have significantly better sound). However, the iPod Touch seems to still be gaining popularity despite the advent of the iPhone. Some people seem to want those features separate from a phone.
    CFWhitman
    Reply Vote

    • ipod touches...

      are mostly being sold to children these days, imo. Gives them a IM, gaming and music/video without a carrier contract. All 4 of my nephews have an ipod touch. They use it a lot more than their DS's.
      kstap
      Reply Vote

  • Windows-8 Could Enhance Percentages

    Depending on how much of a debacle Windows-8 turns out to be with laptops and desktops, I could easily a much higher apple ownership percentage.
    TsarNikky
    Reply Vote

    • Just like Windows Phone 7 did??

      How can anybody think that Win8 will be an instant success when it is based on failures (Kin and WP7).

      MetroUI is a product that was universally rejected TWICE, causing the loss of more more than 3/4 of the market share MS used to own in the mobile space. What makes anybody think that it will be any different on a bigger screen?
      wackoae
      Reply Vote

      • That's What He's Saying

        If you actually read his comment, he said that if Windows 8 is bad enough, then we might see even a higher percentage of Apple products. It's funny, but I suspect that his comment was downvoted by Apple fans who didn't bother to read it carefully.
        CFWhitman
        Reply Vote

      • Get used to it

        Xbox now has it and I haven't seem millions of Xbox users junking their consoles and the ones with Kinect like it even more. Myself and the millions of others that use WP7 phones may be a small group compared to Apple and Android users but that is changing and Nokia is a world phone not just the US. The UI was designed to integrate touch, mouse, kb, voice and gesture across multiple platforms and provide familiarity and ease of use rather than a dated grid of static icons borrowed from the crowded desktop days.

        In a few months, virtually every new PC and laptop will be using it as well as tablets and phones. When Kinect hardware follows web cams, and is integrated into laptops, you might finally get it. Even if you don't get it, you'll be using it eventually ;-)
        tonymcs@...
        Reply Vote

      • It's not Windows Phone 7 that killed MS Mobile

        What killed MS's chance at doing well in the phone market isn't Wp7 itself. I know hardly anyone that has one, but those few who do seem to really like it. What killed it (or will kill it) is the long, long, loooooooonnnngggg gap between Windows Mobile 6.1 and Windows Phone 7.

        I had a Samsung Windows Mobile 6.1 phone and I actually liked it a lot when I got it. It worked well with our corporate Exchange Email and was basically a PDA with a data connection that you could also make calls on - which is exactly what I wanted at the time. But I got tired of the stylus and also when my contract with Verizon expired, Android was a better option by then and had I wanted to switch carriers I could have gone with an iPhone (which was not on Verizon at the time). So Windows Mobile had just gone stale MS took too long to come up with a replacement. By the time they did it was too late.

        Had MS been able to get Windows Phone 7 out at about the time Android 2.0 came out, I think they would have had a good chance of success with it. But they took, what, another year after that?
        cornpie
        Reply Vote

  • Clearly

    It is just a few brainwashed Apple fan boys who purchase Apple's overpriced shiny things. Right? Right?
    dheady@...
    Reply Vote

    • Cue the quote from Disraeli

      Yup.

      I'm not sure I would buy this number for Apple's target demographic. Never mind the population as a whole.
      outpastpluto
      Reply Vote

    • right - and what persentage of US households own actual toys?

      my guess is about a half. and distribution by age group is probably similar.

      it would be also interesting to see how much an average household spends on actual toys annualy and compare the number to the Apple products prices.

      Gadgets are toys, no matter how much effort the gown-up put to tell they world they are no kids any more.
      ForeverSPb
      Reply Vote
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