Gartner: Apple Mac moved up to fifth position in the U.S. market in first quarter 2005
Friday, April 15, 2005 - 01:23 PM EDTWeaker than expected growth in the U.S. PC market was balanced by stronger growth in other regions, as worldwide PC shipments increased 10.3 percent in the first quarter of 2005, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 50.4 million units in the first quarter of 2005, up from 45.7 million in the same period last year.
"The shortfall in the U.S. market was made up for by stronger than expected growth in Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) region," said Charles Smulders, vice president of Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide Group in the press release. "On a worldwide basis, we judge corporate demand to have been weaker than expected."
Dell's worldwide growth rate fell below 20 percent for the first time in ten quarters, pulled down by a weaker performance in the U.S. market. Despite this, Dell's growth rate of 13.7 percent (see Table 1) remained higher than the worldwide average, and it extended its lead in the worldwide rankings.
Hewlett-Packard had a reasonable quarter growing at the worldwide market rate. Both Dell and HP grew at a much faster pace in their non-domestic markets than in the United States.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple shipped 1,070,000 Macintosh units worldwide in the first quarter quarter of 2005 (Apple's fiscal Q2 2005) as reported in Apple's 8-K filing this past Wednesday.
In the U.S. market, lower pricing drove sales of notebooks in the first quarter, however it was not enough to offset the declines in desktop PC shipments.
Despite disappointing results for most vendors in the U.S. market, Apple moved into the fifth position in the U.S. market, ahead of Toshiba. Apple's PC shipments in the United States increased 45.1 percent in the first quarter (see Table 2). The growth of the iMac and PowerBook categories were key drivers for the company.
Gateway approached the one year anniversary of its merger with eMachines. The company experienced a 23.4 percent decline in shipments in the U.S. market during the first quarter. Gartner analysts said the decline underlines Gateway's dependence on the consumer market. The first quarter is a seasonally weak consumer quarter.
These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available soon to clients of Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. Additional research can be found on Gartner's Client Platforms Focus Area on Gartner's Web site at http://www.gartner.com/research/focus_areas/asset_57051_815.jsp
= 
Is Apple eaating Gateway's lunch