IDC: Apple Q4 Sales Up 30%

Hot off the presses and over the transom comes Wednesday afternoon’s PC market share report from Gartner and from International Data Corp., which shows Apple (AAPL) increased its unit sales in the U.S. by 28% in the fourth quarter, according to Gartner, and 30.9% according to IDC. Apple came in at 4th place behind Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and Acer. Apple had 6.1% of the U.S. market, up one percentage point from a year earlier. Gartner says the U.S. market ended the year better than expected, rising 7.2% in units year-over-year to 64.2 million computers.

Apple’s sales increase beat the other three, with Dell’s units rising 14.9%, HP’s rising 9.6% and Acer’s rising 10.7%.

Other interesting tidbits: Total worldwide PC shipments rose to 271.2 million, up 13.4% from 2006. IDC says it was higher than that, at 15.5%. Growth is set to slow this year by anyone’s count, with IDC predicting 12.2% unit growth and Gartner predicting 11.6%. Globally, top-ranked HP had the strongest share gain, with unit sales rising 23.3%, notes Gartner.

The U.S. results were boosted by Acer expanding into the U.S. market and Dell’s entry into the retail market, says IDC analyst David Daoud. “There are still opportunities in developing and developed markets,” says Daoud.

All the results are estimates based on the best guesses of both firms. Apple is the only one of the bunch that doesn’t provide a forecast for PC sales, points out Daoud. One interesting gotcha: Acer increased its share by between 22% and 25% according to the two firms, but that’s counting the prior year’s results from Gateway, which Acer acquired last year.

Comments

[cheesecake]

Apple is costing me a lot of money. I don't even know how to value this stock anymore, it's been going down so much.

[Tom B]

"Apple is costing me a lot of money. I don't even know how to value this stock anymore, it's been going down so much."

Just buy more, while it's selling at discount.