Apple computer sales in the U.S. rose 38 percent during the second quarter, more than triple that of top PC maker Hewlett-Packard, researchers said Tuesday.
Gartner said U.S. Apple PC shipments rose 38.1 percent during the second quarter, compared to the same period in 2007. The Cupertino, Calif. company shipped nearly 1.4 million PCs in the U.S., up from 1 million units during the second quarter of 2007, Gartner said.
Read more about Apple’s jump in marketshare after this jump.
Electronics retail giant Best Buy Monday announced it would acquire Napster for $121 million. The Minneapolis-based company told Cult of Mac the move wouldn’t harm its growing relationship with iTunes owner Apple.
“Our relationship with Apple is strong and will continue to be so,” said Susan Busch, Best Buy Corporate PR Director.
The acquisition of the digital music service would become “a platform for accelerating our growth in the emerging industry of digital entertainment, beyond music subscriptions,” Best Buy Executive Vice President Dave Morrish, said in a statement.
As part of the acquisition, Best Buy gains Napster’s 700,000 subscribers, its online platform and mobile technology. Napster CEO Chris Gorog and senior management would stay on. The retailer will keep Napster’s headquarters in Los Angeles, where it employs 140 workers.
Best Buy could use Napster to attract consumers still unsure of digital music.
“They might be able to find a business in bringing in late-adopters or stragglers into the online music market by virtue of their breadth of products and service,” Mike McGuire’s Gartner’s media analyst, told Cult of Mac.
McGuire said that while iTunes and Napster may have been rivals when they first arrived on the digital music scene, Napster has never been a threat to Apple. This may be why Best Buy emphasized it will still sell the Apple iPhone.
In May, Napster took a swipe at iTunes, announcing it would sell 6 million DRM-free songs, calling it “the largest major label MP3 catalog in the industry, but also the largest library of independent music available anywhere.” McGuire, however, saw the MP3 effort as “something a bit more than an afterthought, but not much more.”
Photo courtesy: Tronick
Another survey seems to confirm Apple products are immune from the general economic malaise hurting consumer spending. Consumers planned to buy more Mac laptops and desktops for the back-to-school period as well as over the next 90 days, according to a a survey by ChangeWave released Monday. This compares to the No. 1 PC maker, which consumers said they would buy fewer.
Also, the August survey found the release of Apple’s iPhone 3G is having a “halo” affect on other products. ChangeWave found 17 percent of consumers said the new iPhone made them more apt to buy a Mac.
Eight percent of the 4,416 mostly-U.S. consumers said during the critical back-to-school season they would buy an Apple product online compared to four percent who said they would buy less from Apple’s Web site, for a four percent overall gain for the Cupertino, Calif. company.
Consumers said, in general, they planned to spend less on electronics over the next three months. ChangeWave found 34 percent of consumers said they would spend less on electronics, compared to 15 percent that indicated they would spend more on electronics. The findings are 13 percent lower than a year ago.
Confidence in Apple products differs from overall PC buying plans. Desire to buy an Apple laptop rose two points (34 percent) with plans for an Apple desktop rising by three points to 30 percent. This contrasts with a decline in plans to buy a PC.
When it came to the top two PC sellers – HP and Dell – the retail reticence was pronounced. Plans to buy a Dell laptop within the next 90 days fell 4 points while future desktops rose by 3 points. U.S. consumers said they would buy fewer HP laptops and desktops, compared to July.
It should be noted that much of HP sales are coming from outside the United States. On Friday, Gartner analyst Alfonso Velso told Cult of Mac that Apple was particularly susceptible to any economic downturn that affected consumer spending. However, only recently had the research firm detected rumblings of any blowback from the economy. Gartner placed Apple as the sixth-largest PC maker. MetaFacts had earlier said Apple ranked fourth in laptop sales.
Apple was the sixth-largest desktop PC vendor worldwide in 2007, shipping just over 3 million computers, research firm Gartner said Friday. The numbers were unexpected, one analyst said.
“We were pretty surprised by the 2007 figures,” Alfonso Velso told Cult of Mac. The 2007 sales figures were 26 percent higher than 2005 when Gartner had estimated Apple shipped 2.5 million desktop computers.Velso said the sales jump is due to Apple products, as well as some missteps by rivals.
“They are riding a crest of good products and design,” the analyst said.
Velso said Gartner had also received anecdotal evidence problems with Dell customer service also sent college students to Apple.
However, Apple faces difficulty keeping up with other PC makers as companies increasingly turn to India, China and other emerging markets to balance lower sales elsewhere due to the economic slowdown. Gartner said just 1 percent of Apple sales come from emerging markets.
Both Dell and HP have experienced success selling low-cost computers to emerging markets as sales in North America, Europe and Japan either shrank or experienced slower growth. Apple doesn’t play in the $400 market, the Gartner analyst said.
The research firm also hinted that Apple could be especially hit by the global economic slowdown. Because its sales are weighted toward the consumer rather than business, sales for Apple could be volatile, according to the report.
Apple’s reliance on designing and manufacturing the hardware and software means the computer company spent $1.1 billion on designing and purchasing custom components. Other PC makers spent far less — $32 million on design and $92 million on purchasing –œ because they dole out work to Asian companies.
Earlier this week, research firm MetaFacts announced Apple was the fourth-largest seller of consumer notebook computers, with 8 percent of the U.S. market.
Flickr image courtesy: Capitan Giona
