Gartner: Mac shipments actually increased by 5 percent last holiday season

By Mariella Moon January 14, 2013

A report by research firm IDC revealed a decline in PC sales in the U.S. market during the 2012 holidays. Compared to 2011’s shipment numbers for the same period, 2012 saw a 6.4 percent decline. IDC also released a list of PC manufacturers and their sales estimates, including Apple, which reportedly sold 3,000 Mac units less than its sales number for the last quarter of 2011. Many attributed Apple’s supposedly slow sales to the new iMac’s availability issues.

However, another report by competing research firm Gartner tells a completely different story.

According to Gartner, Mac shipments in the U.S. for the last quarter of 2012 didn’t decline at all. In fact, sales were even up by 5.4 percent, which means Apple owned 12.3 percent of the market last year as opposed to 11.4 percent the year before. Gartner’s numbers indicate that Apple shipped roughly 2.1 million Macs last holiday season, which is up from 2 million during 2011’s holiday season. While Gartner and IDC disagree on Apple’s success in the PC business, they agree that, as a whole, the PC market in the U.S. shrunk during the last part of 2012 for the first time in five years. The decline is likely due to the increasingly growing mobile world.

Gartner listed the top five PC makers for 2012. HP, which also grabbed the top spot in IDC’s list, led with 26.6 percent share (4.7 million computers) of the U.S. market. Next comes Dell with a share of 19.2 percent (3.4 million PCs), followed by Apple, and then Lenovo with an 8.4 percent share (1.4 million PCs) of the market. Acer tops things off in fifth place with a 7.9 percent share – a far cry from its 21.6 percent market share for 2011.

It’ll be interesting to see how 2013’s smartphone and tablet releases affect PC sales this November and December.

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Mariella loves working on both helpful and awe-inspiring science and technology stories. When she's not at her desk writing…

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