Philip Hodgetts | FCPX numbers | talk with Apple | SCRI numbers

[Bobby Mosca]

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the numbers and methodology were just fine. Craig alluded to the gist, though… the difference between having it and using it.

“I also think Final Cut Pro X has outsold Final Cut Pro 1 at this time in its roll-out.”

Please.

[Craig Seeman]

[Bobby Mosca] “he gist, though… the difference between having it and using it.”

There’s nothing in there that says one way or the other. It’s probably somewhere in between.

[Shane Ross]

I don’t recall being polled by anyone about what NLE I use, so where do they get the market share numbers?

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Andrew Kimery]

I mentioned this in another thread, but w/o seeing more detailed info this doesn’t give any real insight into what’s going on in the industry NLE-wise. SCRI lists six markets that they look at “…broadcast television stations, cable television stations, post production facilities (video and film), video production and multimedia facilities, corporate and institutional video facilities (government, educational, medical).”

I’d be really interested to see who uses what where and how often (sometimes, all the time, I opened it up once… by mistake).

I mean, heck, Premiere was used in the slimmest of ways on Avatar yet Adobe still crowed about it. If PPro wasn’t included w/their CS bundles I doubt anyone would have thought to use it.

-Andrew

2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5)

[Chris Kenny]

[Craig Seeman] “Also it’s not clear that the number is specifically FCPX. Many facilities are still on FCP7 or 6 given the comments about the diminished 7 uptake which is believable. “

I’m virtually certain that number includes all versions of FCP. Its primary interest to this discussion is it demonstrates Apple’s additions of higher-end features to FCP X is not “too late” — existing FCP users have either been moving to FCP X or sticking with classic FCP (I would guess mostly the latter) for now. Those still on classic FCP will have to go somewhere eventually, but FCP X’s feature set has expanded enough now that it will at least be in the running when they do.

[Craig Seeman] “And the following implies not much for Adobe. Again who knows how they’re counting.

The 3% Final Cut Pro X lost in the last year largely went to (no surprise) Media Composer.”

This is also good news for Apple; Avid is likely to be a weaker competitor in the long run, meaning it will be easier for Apple to recapture short-term losses to Media Composer than it would be to recapture losses to Premiere.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[Chris Harlan]

[Shane Ross] “I don’t recall being polled by anyone about what NLE I use, so where do they get the market share numbers?
“

I don’t know how accurate their numbers are, but their abstract catches the mood pretty well:

“Nonlinear editing systems (NLEs) will continue to grow over the next three years, in spite of major technological changes that have left many high-end editors bereft, frustrated and storming out of the edit suite. A technologically intensive, changing business model has made nonlinear editing a challenge to both manufacturers and producers, with improvements and re-branding by Apple leaving some seasoned editors profoundly disgusted.”

[Derek Andonian]

I seriously doubt FCPX would have 52% of all seats rather than a few copies in 52% of the facilities.

52% of the FCPX “seats” are being used by Apple’s case studies!

(bada bump… CHHHH!!!!!)

______________________________________________
“THAT’S our fail-safe point. Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[Craig Seeman]

[Shane Ross] ” don’t recall being polled by anyone about what NLE I use, so where do they get the market share numbers?”

Philip’s post explains that based on the excerpts from SCRI’s methodology. I can pull quote but it’s explained in his article which links to SCRIs explanation.

[Craig Seeman]

Philip responded when I asked him about date range and seats vs facilities.
In a world where clicks matter, as a courtesy to Philip I’ll post the link to his writing again and you can read what’s going on in the comments . . . and bring the conversation back hear.
https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2012/04/some-final-cut-pro-x-data-points/#comment-93872

The period covered wasn’t specified, but I’m pretty sure sales of FCS 3 were pretty slow during early 2011.

This is only new purchases. The other metric covers mixed uses. Number of seats total across all the facility, so Bunim Murray would have counted for 40-50 Media Composer seats, for example.

[Franz Bieberkopf]

Craig, Philip,

I really can’t believe this fluff made it back onto the board here.

MYSTERY

I’m surprised that Philip would say he “understands the methodology – this seems to be a dubious claim to me along with the the claim that there’s a “detailed description” of it, so Philip you’ll have to spell out what you mean.

What we know:
– a survey of 1874 “end users” (another page claims 2500).
– by end-users they seem to mean “facilities” (“1874 facilities across all vertical markets” from the scope and methodology page); we don’t know what constitutes a “facility” but they talk up how they like to get responses from engineers.
– no mention of what Avid calls “creative enthusiasts”; they seem to be talking about “professional” users only.
– they project out from their surveys using statistical models to come up with an guestimate of the picture of 6 “vertical markets”. or something.

So the final numbers are guesses – based on what “model”, we don’t know.

The 52% market share they claim is “new seats”, and only the “pro” market (not all NLE purchases) and does not include all FCPX installs – only installs in “facilities”; further it includes all Apple NLEs so it will include FCP 7 purchases for the period (the last 12 months?).

MARKETING

Anyway quite beyond all this – Apple marketing was faced with a choice between announcing real numbers of real downloads (sales and free trials, which they know) or “pointing to” a survey with vaguely decipherable statistical guesses.

Why would they go with the latter?

MARKET

On the SCRI site, amid all the factual and sparse news announcements of the last year, there is this weird post, essentially one long quote from one user on 2-pop:
https://scri.com/fcp-7-to-x-or-adobe-what-users-are-saying/

The weirdness of that “news” aside, it gives us these quoted figures:
We know that as of NAB Show 2011 FCP had 54% of the market, PPro had only 19%, Avid trailed at 17%, and the remaining 10% were other NLEs (based on data from SCRI’s 2011-2012 NLE Broadcast / Pro Video Report, probably taken from the New York Times Article, “Apple’s Final Cut Is Dead. Long Live Final Cut.”)

So firstly that gives a baseline of how they painted the picture last year.

According to SCRI, last year Apple had 54% of the market. (Note that on Philip’s page he says 55% but I’m not sure where that figure comes from.) This year they have 52%.

So Apple is losing market share.

I mean, personally I think we’re looking at coffee grounds here, but if these numbers mean anything then surely that is the real headline.

Franz.