Apple has climbed to 5.1 percent U.S. market share in computer sales for the last calendar quarter of 2006, only slightly behind Toshibais 5.3 percent according to the Gartner Groupis latest sales report released Wednesday. This places Apple fifth in U.S. computer sales.
On Wednesday, Apple noted during its quarterly Earnings Call that their current growth rate is "three times IDCis latest published market growth rate estimate for the December quarter." In contrast, during the third quarter of 2004 Appleis U.S. market share had declined from 3.6% to 3.2% while competitors saw double digit growth.
In world-wide PC sales, Hewlett Packard is extending its lead over Dell with 17.4 percent compared to Dellis 13.9 percent. In the U.S., Dell still leads H-P by a small margin, but that lead continues to deteriorate according to the Gartner Group.
"Dellis travails continue at a time when the company has been working to increase its gross margins," Gartner said in its report, "as well as dealing with investigations into its accounting by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York."