Why Apple Dominates PC Quality Ratings

Apple Inc’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Mac and iPad continue to dominate Window’s based PCs in surveys. The new ASCI study of customer satisfaction is no exception.

“Apple continues its dominance, leading the PC category by a wide margin for the seventh straight year. Customer satisfaction with Apple’s computer products, including the iPad, rose 2% to an ACSI of 86—the highest score ever for Apple”, the study said. Apple thrashed the competition. Its closest rivals were nine points behind it–Acer, Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) had ratings of 77. Compaq was the lowest rated PC with a score of 74.

All of the companies with rated PC products did relatively well. “Customer satisfaction with PCs surged 4.0% to match the industry’s all-time high of 78. Nearly all brands showed increases in satisfaction and no manufacturer declined.”

There is no mystery behind the success of the Mac. A large number of computer buyers are loyal to all things Apple. They are the same people who buy iPhones and iPods. The Mac, its operating system, and Safari browser are superior products, these buyers claim. Apple’s software is less prone to cyber-attacks because it is not as was widely used as Windows.

The relatively small number of Macs may be the key to Apple’s success. It has, by most measures,  less than 10% of the PC market in America. It is not part of the ruthless competition among Windows-based machines. There are very few versions of the Mac–the MacBook, the MacBook Pro, the iMac, and MacBook Air.

Dell and HP on the other hand have dozens of products. They build more computer types to cater to broader groups of buyers, which opens them up to more complaints. Dell and HP need to support many versions of their products for different customer bases –  game-players to small businesses to large enterprises. A huge product line has more moving pieces to break and fix.

Apple can do well by marketing a very modest number of products which means that the company, even though it clearly makes good computers, only needs to monitor and service very few versions.

Apple’s success in customer satisfaction surveys may simply be due to the fact that it is small.

Douglas A. McIntyre