Mac daddy
Further scrutiny of Apple's latest quarterly earnings by an analyst and covered by Apple Insider reveals Mac sales continue to surge in the enterprise sector.
Charlie Wolf from Needham & co thought a spike in corporate Mac sales in the previous quarter might have been a one-off, but the latest quarter revealed this is probably a more durable trend. "Mac shipments in the business market grew at a torrid 66.0% pace, an order of magnitude higher than the 4.5% shipment growth rate of the business market," he wrote.
These figures come as no great surprise, given that Apple massively out-performed the rest of the PC market in Western Europe last quarter. What growth there is in the PC sector is coming from enterprise these days, with consumers cowed by the enduring economic lull and dissuaded from buying entry-level PCs by the lure of mobile devices.
The story estimates Mac sales to now represent three percent of all PC business sales, which is the highest proportion since 1997, when Macs were Apple's sole focus.
A lot of this surge has to be attributable to the ‘halo effect' from Apple's mobile devices - especially the iPhone and iPad - which are bringing the Apple brand to the attention of execs everywhere. If they already own an Apple mobile device, and are happy with it, that may serve as all the endorsement of the Apple brand they need.
