Gartner: Apple sees 15.4 percent in year-over-year Mac sales
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jul 20, 2006 at 3:02pm
Driven by price cuts, worldwide computer shipments totaled 54.9 million units in the second quarter of 2006, an 11 percent increase from the same period last year, according to preliminary results by the Gartner. And Apple was, well, smokin’, seeing 15.4 percent growth in sales from the second quarter of 2005 to the second quarter of 2006.
According to Gartner, in the second quarter of 2006, Apple sold 766,000 Macs compared to 663,000 in the year-ago period. The company’s market share is now 4.6 percent for the second quarter of 2006 as compared to 4.3 for the second quarter of 2005.
Central processing unit (CPU) inventory clearance activity by Intel, and generally more aggressive pricing by Intel and AMD attributed to lower prices in the quarter. The impact of the CPU price decline varied among regions, said Charles Smulders, vice president of Gartner’s Client Computing Group. In the U.S. and Asia/Pacific, the cuts boosted shipments, while in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) where there remains higher than normal finished goods inventory, shipments were adversely impacted, he added.
In the second quarter of 2006, the top 5 vendors accounted for nearly 50 percent of the worldwide personal computer market. These vendors all grew faster than the overall industry average. Dell maintained its No. 1 position in worldwide PC shipments, as it continued to grow much faster outside the U.S. Hewlett-Packard continued to show strength in the worldwide market, backed by solid consumer growth, mainly in mature markets.
Asia/Pacific and Latin America continued to be the regions with the strongest growth rates. The Asia/Pacific personal market grew 22.5 percent, as shipments reached 12.4 million units in the second quarter. The region was driven by mobile computer shipments which increased 48 percent in the quarter compared to the same period last year.
Latin America computer shipments increased 27 percent in the second quarter with shipments totaling 4.2 million units. Local-branded vendors experienced accelerated growth due to their strong retail presence and their participation in low cost computer programs.
In Japan, personal computer market growth was nearly flat as shipments reached 3.5 million units in the second quarter, a 0.5 percent increase from the same period last year. Negative consumer growth was offset by stronger sales in the professional market.
Rainy Day Says:
Vista is no longer relevant.
Posted on July 20, 2006
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
Juha Haataja Says:
This is great for Apple, especially in contrast to the market anxiety just before Apple published the earnings figures. But can Apple sustain the growth? Although Vista is much delayed, it probably will drive up the demand for PCs during the next 12 months.
On the other hand, many hard-core PC users I know have started talking about Macs like never before - in fact they seem to know more about the Intel-based Macs than I do.
Posted on July 20, 2006