Research firm Gartner today released its preliminary personal computer shipment data for the first quarter of 2012, offering up a picture of market performance during the quarter. While Apple experienced only small year-over-year unit growth of over 3.8% and was beaten among top 5 vendors by HP's 6.6% growth, the company did once again outperform the overall industry and its 3.5% decline.
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Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q12 (Thousands of Units)
Apple's share of the U.S. market registered at 10.6% and has dipped for two straight quarters, dropping from 12.9% in the third quarter of 2011 and 11.6% in the fourth quarter. The weakness in Apple's Mac sales has primarily been attributed to a lack of hardware updates as the company awaits the launch of Intel's Ivy Bridge chips. Still, Apple's 10.6% share during the quarter topped its 9.8% share from the first quarter of 2011.
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Apple's U.S. Market Share Trend: 1Q06-1Q12 (Gartner)
As usual, Gartner did not cover Apple's worldwide market share for the quarter, as the company does not rank among the top five vendors on a worldwide basis. PC shipments experienced slow 1.9% year-over-year on a worldwide basis, with strong growth from Lenovo and Asus keeping the industry in positive territory.
Top Rated Comments
Who likes quality products when I have a team to root for?
I have an iPhone, a Macbook Air, and an iPad. I also had a Palm Pixi, HT Touchpad, and an HP tower. All of which are fine products.
Imagine owning an HP machine...use it and grow up!
Also, who are these people who purchase HP? It took just one phone call to their customer service center in India for me to realize just how awful they are. :(
Stop with the silly car analogies. They simply do not work. You can find more powerful HP computer (compared to Apple) in every computer category. Who is the Benz now?
It's called prioritizing.
If it does what you need it to do, who cares - just a tool. Like someone telling me they can only sketch with a Mahogany pencil.
In the end you judged by what you make, not what you own.
My HP laptop is brilliant and has outlasted several of my friends Macbooks. They make great machines.