The latest data from market research firm NPD Group shows Apple performing very well in U.S. PC sales for the month of October. The 21.5-inch iMac and 27-inch iMac are in first and third place, respectively, under the desktop category while the low-end 13-inch MacBook Pro took the top spot in notebook sales figures. Apple also placed 8th, 9th, and 10th in the notebook category. One caveat: NPD data only shows online and retail store figures. It does not include direct sales of computers to consumers.
Though CNet has quoted NPD’s vice president of industry analysis as saying:
“For the most part, October was a down month on the Windows side because [PC manufacturers] were working through inventory before the Windows 7 launch.”
Global brand strategist and author of the blog Dim Bulb, Jonathan Salem Baskin, is quick to disabuse readers of that notion in his InformationWeek article, The Causality Behind Apple’s Success:
It’s silly to presume that people bought iMacs because retailers were clearing out inventory prior to Windows 7. If anything, any clearance efforts on Vista boxes would have been a competitive pressure on Apple, meaning that its success was greater (selling in spite of redlined PCs). If consumers were waiting for Windows 7, that wouldn’t have translated into Apple sales whatsoever; it would have depressed overall PC sales, though I have trouble believing that the vast numbers of Wintel boxes and retail outlets were so badly hit by new OS anticipation to make Apple’s sales numbers shine so much better.
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