Sales of Apple displays in North America fell 14 percent in the calendar fourth-quarter of last year compared to the previous quarter, according to monitor research company DisplaySearch. As a result, Apple now ranks 13th among all monitor and display makers with a 0.8 percent market share, down from one percent in the previous quarter.

Appleis market share has been slipping over the past year, according to DisplaySearch analyst Chris Connery. In the calendar first-quarter of 2003, Apple held a 1.6 percent market share, but fell to 1.1 percent in the second-quarter. In terms of actual market share ranking, Apple has remained in either 13th or 14th position all throughout 2003.

The preliminary numbers for the fourth-quarter are directly reflective of Appleis overall CPU sales, said Mr. Connery.

"About 90 percent of Appleis display business is bundled with CPUs," said Mr. Connery. "You can correlate Appleis quarterly sales figures with that of our CPU growth numbers. They are very similar."

To prove his point, summary data released by Apple for the calendar fourth-quarter shows combined iMac and Power Mac CPU sales were down 15 percent from the previous quarter - closely mirroring the 14 percent decline reported by DisplaySearch. Apple does not release display sales data in its quarterly figures.

"Appleis percentage of displays bundled with CPUs vacillates from 88 to 92 percent from quarter to quarter," Mr. Connery said.

Historically, Appleis display growth numbers swing violently, again according to Appleis CPU sales. In the calendar first-quarter of 2003, growth jumped 96 percent, but then fell in the second-quarter a hard 27 percent. It then picked back up 13 percent in the third-quarter, before falling 14 percent in the holiday quarter.

Market share leaders in displays and monitors closely follow the leaders in sales of Windows-based CPUs. Dell took first place in the calendar fourth-quarter with a 37.8 percent share on sequential growth of 16 percent. Hewlett-Packard placed second with a 12.8 percent market share on sequential growth of 30 percent. Far back in third place was NEC-Mitsubishi with a 7.0 percent market share on sequential fourth-quarter growth of 4 percent.