Research firms Gartner and IDC yesterday both released preliminary reports detailing U.S. and worldwide PC shipments for the first quarter of 2010, and the two firms interesting offer very different pictures of Apple's U.S. performance during the quarter.
According to Gartner's report, Apple placed fifth among U.S. computer shipments with an 8.0% market share on unit growth of 34.0% over the year-ago quarter. Apple's market share was up significantly from the previous quarter's 7.5% share and from 7.2% in the year-ago quarter. The year-over-year increase moved Apple to its highest share first-quarter market share in recent years, in what is traditionally a light quarter for industry sales.
Apple's U.S. Market Share Trend: 1Q06-1Q10 (Gartner)
Overall, Gartner saw a healthy 20.2% gain in U.S. PC shipments over the year-ago quarter. The top five performing manufacturers broke down into three groups, with leaders HP and Dell showing slow growth of only approximately 7% while Acer and Toshiba continued to ride the wave of netbook popularity with 50% year-over-growth. Apple's 34% growth places it firmly in front of the industry average, but continuing to lose ground to those directly ahead of it in the charts.
Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q10 (Thousands of Units)
For its part, IDC takes a much more dismal view of Apple's U.S. performance during the quarter, calculating Apple's market share there at only 6.4% on shipments of just over 1.1 million Macs, well below Gartner's estimate of nearly 1.4 million units. IDC's numbers have Apple's U.S. shipments growing only 8.3% year-over-year, significantly below the industry's overall growth rate of 16.9%.
It is unclear from where the discrepancy in data for Apple's shipments comes in the two reports, although most research analysts are expecting in the range of 25-50% year-over-growth in Mac sales for the quarter. While Apple's U.S. sales growth measured by Gartner and IDC may differ from global sales growth being predicted by the analysts, Gartner's analysis appears at this time to be a more realistic assessment of Apple's performance. We should learn more on Apple's sales next Tuesday, when the company releases its quarterly earnings report.
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
Tuesday April 22, 2025 10:22 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple plans to release an all-new super thin iPhone this year, debuting it alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We've seen pictures of dummy models, cases, and renders with the design, but Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy today showed off newer dummy models that give us a better idea of just how thin the "iPhone 17 Air" will be.
The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be ...
Thursday April 24, 2025 2:14 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
If you missed the video showing dummy models of Apple's all-new super thin iPhone 17 Air that's expected later this year, Sonny Dickson this morning shared some further images of the device in close alignment with the other dummy models in the iPhone 17 lineup, indicating just how thin it is likely to be in comparison.
The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be around 5.5mm thick – with a thicker ...
Tuesday April 22, 2025 5:01 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
A developer has demonstrated Windows 11 ARM running on an M2 iPad Air using emulation, which has become much easier since the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations came into effect.
As spotted by Windows Latest, NTDev shared an instance of the emulation on social media and posted a video on YouTube (embedded below) demonstrating it in action. The achievement relies on new EU regulatory...
Thursday April 17, 2025 4:12 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup.
If you skipped the iPhone...
Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 18.5 to developers today, and so far the software update includes only a few minor changes.
The changes are in the Mail and Settings apps.
In the Mail app, you can now easily turn off contact photos directly within the app, by tapping on the circle with three dots in the top-right corner.
In the Settings app, AppleCare+ coverage information is more...
Wednesday April 23, 2025 8:31 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
