MacRumors.com

MacDailyNews republishes numbers from a preliminary report by Gartner on 1st quarter 2007 PC marketshare results. The numbers reveal an 8.9% worldwide increase in PC shipments, and a 2.6% U.S. increase in PC shipments compared to the same period last year.

HP now commands the highest international marketshare (chart) with 17.6% of shipments worldwide while Dell remains #1 in the U.S. (chart) despite a 15.5% drop in shipments from the year-ago quarter.

Apple, however, has seen a 30% increase in shipments for the 1Q07 period compared to 1Q06 period and held a 5% U.S. marketshare for PC shipments in the 1st quarter of 2007. This marketshare number represents the percentage of Macs out of all PCs shipped in the U.S for Q107. Apple's marketshare numbers over the past few quarters have been fluctuating between 4.7-6.1% depending on the source of the data, but year-to-year marketshare growth provides a useful measure and indicates that Apple's sales growth outpaced the PC industry as a whole.

Last year's Q106, however, may have been artificially low for Apple as that was still in the midst of the Intel transition. Apple has also blamed a slow Intel-transition of professional applications such as Adobe's Creative Suite for slow Mac Pro sales. Now with Creative Suite 3 shipping, we would hope to see further growth in Apple's Mac sales, if this indeed has been a limiting factor.