“After the market closed today Apple posted its financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter, and among the many happy numbers — profits of $904 million, up 67 percent from the same time last year — was this amazing one: 2.2 million. That’s the quantity of Macs Apple sold during the quarter, beating its previous record quarter by 400,000,” Farhad Manjoo blogs for Salon.
“About 800,000 of the machines were desktops, and about 1.4 million were laptops. The number cements Apple’s status as a computer-sales powerhouse. Though it still trails Dell (5 million sold in the quarter) and H.P. (4.3 million), Apple’s sales are growing far faster than those of the Windows PC market,” Manjoo reports.
“There is a real story here: By binding its hardware and software — its OS and its machines — Apple chose long ago to part ways with the rest of the industry. For years, that model looked doomed to fail. The Windows hegemony looked unbeatable,” Manjoo writes.
“To be sure, nothing in today’s numbers signals the end of Windows. But that a company can not only survive but thrive without buying into the Redmond model of development, that’s now obvious. These numbers prove it,” Manjoo writes. “It’s a big story. And if Jobs keeps doing what he’s doing, it’ll get bigger still every quarter.”
Full article, which also includes discussion of Apple’s strong iPod and iPhone sales, here.