Combined North American and international sales of personal computer applications software by US companies rose 16.8% to $1,220m in the first quarter of 1992, the US Software Publishers Association reckons, with the North American market on its own doing rather better and putting on 19.8%. In particular, sales of Windows and Macintosh applications were up sharply with Windows applications soaring 98% to $311m compared with first quarter 1991. Sales of Macintosh applications were also up 51% to a total of $216m but MS-DOS remained the largest-selling format in the North American market with sales of $647m, albeit that that is a 4% decline.
New categories
The Association has added several new categories, and these were among the fastest growing. Sales of utility software reached $90m, up 74%; sales of presentation graphics and drawing and painting packages were each up about 45%, both on strong sales of Windows products in these categories. Word processors are still the largest application category, but are, not surprisingly a very mature market, with sales just 4% up at $172m in the quarter – but within that, sales of MS-DOS word processors slumped 47% while Windows word processors rose 108% and Mac word processors, rather more surprisingly, put on a dramatic 91%. Spreadsheets come next, and rose 9% increase to $165m. The Association has altered its metrics somewhat this year in face of what it calls fundamental changes in the software marketplace. It highlights among changes the rapid growth of Windows and dramatic growth of new categories, including utilities, presentation graphics, and drawing and painting. It also notes that mark-ups have declined, with the retailers taking the strain, so that the ratio of street prices to publisher revenues has narrowed – which looks like a time bomb that could explode at any time in the faces of publishers that set unrealistically high prices faced with retailers that can’t survive on starvation margins. There has also been an increase in direct sales to end-users, the Association notes. Revising our methodology to reflect these changes allows us to provide numbers that more accurately reflect the reality in today’s marketplace, it says. The figures are culled from returns by 150 publishers, which report their application software sales in 31 categories of software and eight formats. Starting with the present figures, the Association is reporting North American retail sales estimates in a wider spread of application categories. These are Utilities – new, which includes products designed to enhance or improve operating systems, such as anti-virus, file recovery and back-up packages; Presentation Graphics, also new; Drawing & Painting, new; Home Education, new, and including Finance; Personal finance, and tax and accounting packages. Other graphics includes all other graphics applications, such as forms packages, fonts, clip art collections, and home-oriented graphics software. Entertainment covers all types of personal computer-based games, excluding cartridge video games. The other categories are Word Processors, Databases, Spreadsheets, Integrated; Desktop Publishing; Languages & Tools; and Other Productivity, which is Lord High Everything Else and covers the full gamut from electronic mail, through project management and design.
