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Snow Leopard shows retail sales strength

Opinion and Analysis

Early sales of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard have been strong, according to a market researcher. How strong? Far stronger than Leopard or Tiger.

Retail sales of Snow Leopard far outstripped those of Leopard, according to market research company NPD Group.

NPD's retail tracking service reported that Snow Leopard's initial sales were more than twice those of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and almost four times those of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Furthermore, sales held up longer after the initial rush. Second week sales of Snow Leopard declined approximately 25%, while Leopard and Tiger both saw second-week falls of more than 60%.

NPD ascribes the strong sales to the relatively low price of Snow Leopard.

"Even though some considered Snow Leopard to be less feature-focused than the releases of Leopard or Tiger, the ease of upgrading to Snow Leopard and the affordable pricing made it a win-win for Apple computer owners - thus helping to push sales to record numbers," said Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis.

"With pricing reduced by more than $[US]100 for both the single-user and five-user pack versus Leopard pricing, Apple has clearly demonstrated that aggressive pricing policies in this economic environment generate an outstanding consumer response," he added.

Another part of the explanation must surely be the strong Mac sales during the last few years, giving a larger pool of potential customers.

Apple has been selling around 2.5 million Macs per quarter during the last year or so, all of which are prime candidates to move to Snow Leopard.

In the run-up to Leopard's release, quarterly Mac sales were in the 1.5 to 2 million range, so there were fewer - though not half as many - systems suited to the upgrade.

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