Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Apple captures 6.6% of US PC sales

AppleInsider has given us details of a report released by Gartner indicating that Apple has hit 6.6% US market share for PC sales. This places Apple in 4th place, after Dell, HP, and Acer, and puts them ahead of Toshiba. The 6.6% market share represents a significant increase over the 5.2% in the same quarter last year.

What's really remarkable about this is the number of units shipped. Last year they shipped 0.76 million units in Q1. In 2008 Q1 it was up 32.5% to 1.010 million. Even more remarkable is the fact that this quarter's shipments are only slightly less than the 2007 Q4 quarter, when they shipped 1.035 million units. To put it another way, in this traditionally slow quarter, Apple shipped 97.6% as many units in the US as the most recent red hot Christmas holiday quarter.

What we don't know is the worldwide sales numbers. There has been talk of a 2 million Mac Q1, but given the remarkable US numbers released by Gartner, it makes us wonder if Apple can beat even that. Perhaps 2.1-2.2 million? Either way, if the analysts are right then this would represent the first time Apple has shipped 2 million units in the calendar Q1 quarter.

Apple reports its quarterly results on April 23. The (less than inspiring guidance) for the last quarter was revenue of $6.8 billion, with earnings of 94¢ per share. Undoubtedly Apple will beat that, and the Street is predicting earnings of $1.06 per share on revenue of $6.95 billion for the quarter. Expected guidance for calendar Q2 2008 is $1.10 per share on $7.14 billion in revenue.

AAPL closed today at $153.70, up $5.32 (3.59%), and then ended the day up another $1.37 after-hours to $155.07. That's $6.69 over yesterday's close, up 4.5%.

[Update 2008-04-17]

Here is a summary of analysts' earning estimates.

Note that the article talks about Apple's financial Q2, which is the same as calendar Q1.