Apple creams Windows PCs in US retail sales over $1000

We’ve always known that Apple’s marketshare figures are skewed by enterprise sales of servers, terminals and word processing PCs, and new research from NPD confirms this, revealing that two-thirds of laptops costing $1,000 or more and sold across US retail chains are Macs.

Macs? That’s right. New figures from the research group as reported by eWeek reveal that 66 per cent of laptops sold in US retail stores that cost $1,000 or more are Macs. And while that share slides to just 14 per cent for computers costing under $1,000, the news still confirms Apple’s growing footprint in retail Mac sales.

NPD vice president Stephen Baker told eWeek that Apple’s notebook marketshare is growing at twice the market rate, with Windows notebooks “pretty flat right now”.

It’s not just notebooks. Apple’s retail desktop sales have climbed 45 per cent, against industry patterns for desktop sales (down 20 per cent) and far outweighing Windows’ Vista’s continuing decline – sales of desktop PCs running that OS are down 25 per cent, eWeek reveals.

"iMacs are growing and the Windows desktop ain’t. No matter how you look at it, Apple is outperforming Windows,” Baker said.

"Apple has got better distribution than it’s had in the last 15 years," he adds. "They’re in the right spot right now. There’s the iPod advantage. But the big thing is the stores."

It’s an inflection point for Apple, alright – don’t forget the company recently surpassed Dell to become the biggest laptop vendor in the US education market.