Sales of Apple Computer Inc’s Macintosh computers will increase by nearly 40% in 1988, according to an independent survey of industry executives and high-tech analysts conducted by Genesis Research of Los Altos, California, and presented at the MacUser Marketing Conference in Berkeley yesterday. The survey sees US Mac sales in 1988 reaching 690,000 units, but that sales to large-scale mainframe users will make up only a small proportion of the total. The corporate market as a whole will account for over half of total Mac sales, but the survey indicates that the growth in corporate sales is coming not from large users currently the target of a massive Apple sales effort, but from individual business end users and departmental level purchasing people. According to Genesis Research president Jeni Sall, The respondents to our study continue to see small-medium business as the largest segment of the Mac market – representing more than one third of Mac sales. Industry executives saw 28% of all Macs being bought by small and medium sized companies and only 8% that’s 55,000 machines – being sold in quantities of 50 or more units. Education is expected to account for 17%, a declining share of the total because of the rapid growth in the business market, the poll showed, while local, state and federal government agencies are expected to account for 14% of total sales. Conference and survey are sponsored by MacUser.
