Snow Leopard sales strong
Industry analysts say that sales of Snow Leopard, aka OS 10.6, are extremely strong and continue to set records compared to previous releases in the first several weeks after launch.
NPD, the well-known New York-based market analysis firm, is out with a report which says that sales of the newest Mac operating system, Snow Leopard, has first-two-week sales far in excess of those posted by the previous two version of the operating system (Tiger and Leopard). Specifically, Snow Leopard sales are running better than double those of the original Leopard system and more than four times better than the Tiger release of OS X.
Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD, said in his latest report, “Even though some considered Snow Leopard to be less feature-focused than the releases of Leopard or Tiger, the ease of upgrading to Snow Leopard and the affordable pricing made it a win-win for Apple computer owners – thus helping to push sales to record numbers.” Baker goes on to note that Snow Leopard’s sales momentum lasted beyond the first week’s retail rush. Sales only declined about 25 percent from week 1 to week 2, while for both Leopard and Tiger the second week of sales was more than 60 percent below the opening week volumes. The newest release of the Mac OS is proving popular indeed.
Baker concludes, “With pricing reduced by more than $100 for both the single-user and five-user pack versus Leopard pricing, Apple has clearly demonstrated that aggressive pricing policies in this economic environment generate an outstanding consumer response. As we head into the fall selling season, and the release of another major OS upgrade, it will be instructive to see if that upgrade – currently projected to sell at ASPs much higher than Snow Leopard – can deliver the same incremental increase in consumer demand that Snow Leopard has enjoyed.”
One can only assume that executives at Microsoft are watching Snow Leopard sales and hoping that their release of Windows 7 can do as well in their own much larger market segment after the relative disappointment of Windows Vista. One can imagine the glee in Redmond if the first two weeks of sales for Windows Seven were four times that enjoyed by Windows XP, which had the same relationship for Macs as tiger does to Snow Leopard.
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