TechPulse 360

Apple suffered in January its first monthly decline in three years of Macintosh sales at U.S. retail stores

The recession is finally catching up with Apple, which so far refused to lower its prices despite the sudden drop of consumer spending.

According to market-research firm NPD, unit sales of Apple computers through U.S. retail channels fell 6 per cent in January, while Windows PC unit sales were up 16.6 per cent, compare to the same period last year.

In dollar value, the drop of Mac sales was much steeper, at 11 per cent.

However, all Macs are not treated equal. Mac notebook growth was 9.4 per cent, compared with 26.6 per cent for Windows portables, while Mac desktops drop 31.5 per cent and -6.5 per cent for Windows laptops.

Did Apple lost its Mojo?

Apple’s market share, measured in dollars, is now 13.7 per cent of the U.S. PC market, down from 16.4 per cent in January 2008; and far behind H-P’s, now at 40.1 per cent, up from 39.2% a year earlier.

And this time, declining iPod sales will not be able to offset Apple’s lower Macintosh sales. Indeed, NPD reports that iPod unit sales were also down 14% year-over-year in January.

Looking ahead, NPD expects 2009 sales of Macintosh to decline year-over-year; for the first time since 2003!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 9:41 am and is filed under computers, hardware, news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.