Apple Holiday Sale 2009“Needham’s Charlie Wolf was as surprised as anyone when Apple reported that it had sold a record 3.05 million Macintosh computers in its fiscal fourth quarter — a 16.4% increase compared with just 2.3% growth in the PC market,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.

“So he took a close look at how Apple did it, and on Tuesday in a detailed report to clients he offered his answer: the home market,” Elmer-DeWitt reports.

The twin drivers of the Mac’s rebound were the home market’s continued share gains in the PC market and the Mac’s share gains in the home market itself. Shipments in the worldwide home market increased 18.1% compared to an 11.5% decline in all other PC segments, while Mac shipments in the home market increased 28.8%. In the Western European home market, shipments rose an impressive 58.9%. – Needham & Co.’s senior analyst Charlie Wolf, December 1, 2009

Elmer-DeWitt reports, “Apple’s dollar share of the home market is growing even faster than its unit share. Today, Apple gets one out every ten dollars spent on home computers worldwide. In the U.S., its dollar share is more than one in five.”

Wolf’s findings are driven home by a series of charts and graphs, see them in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "James W." and "Brawndo Drinker" for the heads up.]