Apple MacBook sales going UP

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 24 June 2007 16:48

Opinion and Analysis

In the US, Apple now sits in fourth spot on the notebook sales ladder, enjoying a 14% increase from last month, while the desktop market awaits the rumored new iMacs.

Computerworld has quoted an NPD Group report on Apple’s growing share of the notebook market, with laptop share now at 14.3% in fourth spot behind HP, Toshiba and Gateway, meaning one in seven notebooks sold in the US is an Apple.

The report noted that all players enjoyed rising notebook sales, it’s just that Apple’s grew faster than the rest at “14% month-over-month” growth, spurred on by the release of an updated MacBook with faster specs, which was followed soon after by MacBook Pros updated with Intel’s latest Santa Rosa-enhanced Centrino Duo platform.

Also noted were falling desktop sales for all manufacturers, with Apple’s declining at a slower rate despite rumors of freshly re-designed iMacs on the way, possibly with an aluminum casing as per the MacBook Pro.

Questions remain over the future of the Mac Mini, with many hoping the Mac Mini isn’t discontinued, but is instead upgraded as well. Rumors of a Mac Tablet and an ultra-thin MacBook Pro with smaller screen being in development at Apple HQ have also persisted without any official confirmation.

Apple’s increased market share with MacBooks comes at a time when everything is going right for Apple.

Apple’s MacBook and MacBook pro compare favorably when priced against Windows based competitors, have a design that’s 5 years old but is still better than everyone else’s, and can run Windows natively or virtually using either Parallels or VMWare, and even has a new operating system due in October that looks much more polished than Vista was in its pre-release state.

And none of that has anything to do with Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field or all the iPhone hype the world is going through, all of which is only going to get more fervent up to the iPhone’s release and even more strongly after that!

Unless you’re on an absolute budget and have to get the cheapest computer possible, Apple have made their range of computers more attractive than ever before from every angle conceivable, including full and uncompromising Windows XP and Vista compatibility.

It turns the question that some may have of ‘Why Mac?’ into a very genuine ‘Why not?’