Apple is poised to ship fewer Macs to the US year-over-year in a quarter for the first time in multiple quarters, according to early estimates from IDC. Researchers believe Apple will have shipped 1.13 million Macs in its home country in the first quarter of 2009, or a 1.2 percent drop versus the same stretch one year earlier. The company will have ultimately gained a slight amount of market share, moving from 7.2 percent to 7.6, but will also been one of only two firms in the top 5 computer vendors to have shipped fewer systems in winter 2009 than in 2008, with Dell being the other exception.

The Mac producer is therefore likely to keep its fourth-place position but also won't have dislodged its competitors. HP should have shipped about 12.2 percent more PCs year-over-year, cresting at 4.13 million delivered between January and March and netting 27.6 percent of the market; Dell dropped 16.2 percent to 3.93 million and 26.3 percent share, while Acer grew 13.4 percent to 1.58 million PCs and 10.5 percent share. Toshiba occupies fifth place with 987,000 PCs shipped and 6.6 percent share but an increase in shipments of about 18.7 percent.

US results are seen as having come out of the economic crash "better than expected" and actually outperformed even developing countries, where PC adoption rates normally clime much faster. IDC doesn't specifically explain the declines of either Apple or Dell but notes that poor desktop sales and the influx of netbooks, which aren't dominated by either company, gave support to those companies which focused heavily on lower-cost notebooks. Apple and Dell primarily focused on upscale notebooks during the period, such as the new unibody MacBook line and the Studio XPS series.

Worldwide, the PC market largely remained static and again gave the nod to HP, which shipped 13 million PCs and grew its PC shipments by a slight 2.9 percent, handing it 20.5 percent of the market. Dell dropped on the international stage as well, shipping 16.7 percent fewer PCs and declining to 8.65 million PCs and 13.6 percent share. Acer delivered 6.8 percent more PCs, supplying 7.33 million units and achieving 11.6 share; Lenovo shipped 8 percent fewer computers but remained steady with 7 percent share and 4.4 million computers, while Toshiba's US success was echoed in an 11.6 percent rise to 3.45 million PCs and a lift to 5.4 percent share.

IDC doesn't break down individual statistics for those companies that fall outside of the top 5 in each category, though Apple usually has world market share near 3 percent.