01/16/2008, 5:00pm, EST
Wednesday, January 16thAcer, Apple, HP victors in 2007 US sales
Three computer builders showed the clearest signs of growth in US PC shipments over the course of last year, according to a new study by IDC. Preliminary estimates by the research group show that while the US market for computers grew relatively slowly at a flat 7 percent, Acer, Apple, and HP performed the most consistently ahead of others in final results. Acer showed the single highest percentage of growth at 292 percent year-over-year courtesy of its acquisition of Gateway but still showed strong enough growth as a combined company to claim fourth place in the US market at 5.5 percent of all PCs shipped to the country.
Apple in turn successfully moved into third place and was the strongest-performing company of the top five after factoring in PC sales, growing by more than 31 percent; early figures will have seen the company ship almost 4.1 million Macs to the US and claim about 5.8 percent marketshare for new systems. Hewlett-Packard was the largest in terms of sheer numbers and grew more slowly at nearly 19 percent, but sold a far larger number of PCs, reaching almost 16.8 million computers in the year and accounting for 23.9 percent marketshare, or second place.
Dell suffered the most during the year, the study notes. It continued to hold on to the lead in overall control of the PC market at 28 percent share but shrunk 4 percent between 2006 and 2007.
Short-term results for the holiday quarter indicated that positions may be changing, however. Apple remained largely unchanged in marketshare numbers (5.7 percent) but slipped to fourth place after the combined Acer and Gateway claimed a much higher 8.2 percent of all PCs sold. Dell also fared better and grew by 15 percent after months of slower or negative results. By contrast, HP only grew by almost 10 percent, just slightly higher than the 9 percent average.
World figures have also been published both for the latest quarter and for 2007 but show relatively stable performance over 2007; Acer's acquisition resulted in a boost to third place during both the last three months and for the year, while HP (first), Dell (second), Lenovo (fourth), and Toshiba (fifth) all grew at or slightly above the industry average of 15.5 percent. Apple and other firms were not included outside of the top five international rankings.
As a whole, approximately 269 million PCs will have been shipped worldwide over the last year, IDC adds. The statistic worsens the appearance of Microsoft's touted Windows Vista sales: while the aging Windows XP is now known to have outsold Vista by 50 percent or more, the new statistic indicates that just 37 percent of all computers shipped with the latest Microsoft OS.
Filed under: computers, industry, Apple
Other story tags: Dell, HP, Toshiba, Acer, Lenovo, Gateway
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Low cost tower, anyone. Real ultra-portable, anyone.
Not that it isn't good to see them continue to climb, but if only you didn't have to make a choice between a more powerful $400 hp laptop and a $1000 macbook.
"http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=macintosh_os&articleId=9023959&taxonomyId=123&intsrc=kc_feat"
"I was a little surprised to find that Dell's Inspiron line doesn't currently offer processing power equaling that of the MacBook Pro.
"Once I did that, though, and tricked out the M1710 with only those extras it had to have to compete with the MacBook Pro, I was surprised to see the Dell come in at a whopping $3,459, some $650 more than the Apple product. Now, it's true that the Dell has some additional features (higher-end video and six USB ports instead of three, for example), but it also weighs nearly two pounds more and is much chunkier (1.69-in. thick, compared with 1 in.)."
Stop comparing apples and oranges. If you're happy with fooling yourself, then post comments on your brainboard, and rant about how windows and mac os are the same, so you're getting the same thing, on your imaginaryblog. If you have something interesting to say, by all means, come back.
Low-Cost tower? Mac mini is your "alternative" (I'm getting one for my mom).
MacBook Air, yes its niche- but in a way thats how the entire Mac line is...
If it walks and talks like a troll...
An iMac makes way more sense than the Mac Mini which is a shame because I always thought it had great potential.
Compared to cheap PCs it also looks like poor value so isn't winning over any switchers. I think they are mainly going for MacBooks and iMacs.
What comes out of this article is that the previously higher marketshares don't seem to hold and the international marketshare doesn't seem to register on the radar.
Not surprising as Apple charges a huge premium outside the States and the the 2 massive markets of China and India, experiencing enormous growth, remain neglected by Apple.