Low PC prices push Mac sales down
The latest PC sales reports from Gartner Group and IDC find that the recent spate of very cheap Windows personal computers may have slowed sales of the Apple line of computers during the last quarter of 2009.
Even though Mac computer sales were up between 23 and 31 percent (depending on whether you trust the numbers from Gartner or IDC) during the fourth quarter of 2009, sales of Windows PC were up even more, resulting in Apple being pushed back down to fifth place in the list of leading PC sellers. Apple is now once again behind Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Toshiba on that list, regardless of whose analysis you prefer. Apple had moved up to fourth place the previous quarter, edging ahead of Toshiba, according to a TopNews story.
Gartner places the total number of PC’s sold worldwide during that last quarter of 2009 at over 90 million machines, a very strong rally of 22 percent over the final quarter of 2008. It appears that the bad news from the global recession may finally be abating in the PC sector. The Gartner analysis on the increased PC demand included Gartner chief analyst Mikako Kitagawa’s position that the demand was fueled largely by “aggressive promotion by PC vendors and channels,†as well as “price cuts†by some vendors.
Much of the increase in PC sales may well be due simply to lower prices by manufacturers trying to move inventory for the holidays, and choosing to do that by offering fire sale prices on low-end laptops and netbooks. That is hardly Apple’s style, and they may have suffered a little for holding the price/quality line. It is also likely that the release of Windows 7 may have spurred sales, finally giving PC users an opportunity to stop running on Windows XP, and giving them an opportunity at last to purchase a new Windows PC system that was not running Vista.
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January 16th, 2010
Let’s face it – the release of Windows 7 will have been the main factor in putting Apple’s percentage lower. People have been putting off computer purchases until the release of Windows 7 this year as opposed to buying one with Vista installed.
I also find this a very misleading article title as Apple’s Mac sales are not down – they are actually significantly up. Proportionately, they are lower, and that’s a lot different.
March 8th, 2010
Actually, Mac sales rose over 30 percent in January. Lets face it, for people that can afford to know better, Macs are still the best choice…