Big Mac
Apple has become the dollar share leader in the US PC market for the first time, according to one set of figures, while others still place it in second position.
According to an analyst at Needham & Company, Apple's Mac products took 29.4 percent of every dollar earned from US computer sales, unofficial Apple blog Apple Insider reported.
The analyst called Charlie Wolf, reportedly found Apple's share of dollars spent trumped HP's at 20.6 percent and Dell's at 12.9 percent. Perhaps even more impressively, he believes Apple hit the milestone with just 12.2 percent of market share in the US computer space, which in itself is reportedly a personal best for Apple.
However, there is some speculation that Wolf's number crunching has come unstuck as his figures are apparently based on the average selling price of a Mac computer as listed by research firm IDC.
It would appear the IDC's Mac figures were more generous than Apple's which revealed the average price was flat in Q3 from Q2. Wolf told Apple Insider that the numbers are good and that IDC "stood by its average selling price estimate".
Yet he reportedly admitted: "If Apple's average selling price were substituted for IDC's, the Mac's dollar share of the U.S. home market would fall to 20.0%, slightly less than HP's share."
Whether Apple is technically first or second in the US market in terms of dollar share, the data does seem to demonstrate that as Apple's market share has climbed slowly its dollar share has rocketed perhaps as Apple has stuck to its guns with the pricing of its Mac products instead of trying to slash prices and compete with cheaper alternatives like many of its rivals.
According to Wolf, worldwide Mac sales ‘significantly outpaced' the US market in Q3 and Apple's shipments reportedly increased 25.3 percent year-on-year compared with the market average of 10.4 percent.
He also believes Apple's boost in the business world has contributed to its success. Mac sales in the business market are said to have soared 66.3 percent in the last quarter, compared to a market average of 8.5 percent.
Wolf told the blog:"To put these percentages in perspective, the home market still represented a commanding 63.2 percent share of total Mac shipments in September while shipments in the business market accounted for just 18.6 percent. Nonetheless, the second consecutive quarter of stunning growth in the business market could possibly represent the canary in the coalmine."
While IDC figures are reportedly a little more cautious, they apparently also show Apple's growing importance in business markets, with Macs up 201.7 percent year-on-year in ‘very large businesses' when the market only grew by 26 percent in the same time frame.
Here is a chart from IDC and Apple Insider to demonstarte the Mac's US success.
