Apple's Consumer Marketshare Much Higher?

Fortune's Apple 2.0 Blog reports on an analyst research note by Berstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi Jr that reframes some of Apple's notebook marketshare numbers.

In breaking notebook shares into 5 separate price ranges (quintiles), Sacconaghi found that Apple's marketshare amongst the most expensive quintile of notebooks was as high as 29%. Of course, also based on his data, Apple lost marketshare amongst the bottom three quintiles (cheapest notebook sales).

Unfortunately, these numbers by themselves are near meaningless. However, the most interesting tidbit of information gleaned was when they excluded business sales: Apple's 29% notebook marketshare rose to 46% when counting only consumer + educational sales.

This may confirm anecdotal reports that Apple's marketshare appears to be booming amongst college campuses. As a result, Apple's consumer marketshare could be substantially higher than the traditional 5-6% marketshare numbers would suggest.