Apple now sells 1 in 12 U.S. computers

Computerworld - Apple Inc.'s share of the U.S. computer market climbed again last quarter, two research firms said today, and the company now has a solid lock on third place behind Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.

Both Gartner and IDC put Apple in the third spot for U.S. shipments, with Gartner claiming Apple sold 1.34 million and IDC saying it sold 1.13 million machines. Rounding out the top five in the U.S. were Toshiba and Gateway.

Although Apple's system sales paled compared to Dell's numbers -- Dell shipped between 4.83 million and 5.01 million PCs in the U.S. -- or HP's figures, Apple's year-to-year growth rate ranged from 15.9% by IDC's calculation to 37.2% by Gartner's figuring. That's a far cry from the decline of Dell, which Gartner put as down 5.5% for the quarter, and the more modest increase of 16.5% Gartner said HP posted for the three months.

Gartner pegged Apple's U.S. market share at 8.1%, while IDC, which posted more conservative Apple numbers across the board, put its third-quarter share at 6.3%. The prior quarter, IDC had Apple at 5.3% of the U.S. market. Since the first of the year, the Framingham, Mass., research company's data showed that Apple has grown its piece of the pie by 1.6 percentage points.

While Gartner's and IDC's numbers for Apple differed wildly, their figures pointed out that Apple's year-to-year growth rate remained significantly higher than the PC industry average. Gartner, for example, said that Apple's growth was nearly eight times the average during the quarter, while IDC put it at just over three times greater than the average.

In global sales statistics, however, Apple is but a blip, with its numbers buried in the "Others" category by both research firms. Worldwide, for example, No. 1 HP sold between 12.8 million and 13.1 million machines during the quarter; second-place Dell, between 9.9 million and 10.2 million PCs globally.

Apple will release definitive sales figures on Monday, when it holds its fiscal fourth-quarter conference call with Wall Street analysts.