MacRumors.com

News.com cites data from NPD which reports that Apple's iWork has achieved a 2.7% unit share in 2005 "Office Suite" U.S. Retail Sales. This edges out Corel's WordPerfect Office which has as 1.6% share.

Apple's share is particularly impressive considering that iWork runs only on Macs, which account for a small fraction of computers, said NPD analyst Chris Swenson. "Apple's success for iWork has been pretty surprising," he said.

Microsoft Office, of course, carries approximately 95% of the remaining unit sales. When limiting the data to Mac sales only, Apple's iWork carries a 17.4% share compared to 82% for Microsoft.

As with all statistics, these numbers must be taken in context. Corel notes that these sales do not take into account commercial sales and distributor bundles which would likely rival iWork total sales. Regardless, it represents a notable accomplishment.

Apple updated iWork earlier this year and has been rumored to add a spreadsheet component.