Apple Imac Tops Q4 Us Retail Mail Order Pc Sales; Presario 5170 #1 In December

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor,  Jan 25, 1998  

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Apple Computer's widely popular iMac consumer computer was the number one selling PC through retail and mail order channels during the 1998 holiday season (October through December 1998), according to PC Data's December Retail/Mail Order Hardware Report. The iMac accounted for 6.2 percent of all unit sales in the fourth quarter, as well as 7.2 percent of the dollar volume. The average price for the iMac was $1,224 during the quarter.

"Not only was iMac the leading SKU during the holiday buying season, but it is the only product to break into the top five best-selling PCs for five months straight," says Stephen Baker senior hardware analyst at PC Data. "Despite falling from the top spot in November to number three in December, the iMac was the number one selling PC since its mid-August introduction, capturing six percent of total unit sales during that period, in addition to leading overall sales in the fourth quarter."

Other best-sellers in the fourth quarter were three Compaq Presarios, the 5170 running on a Pentium II 350Mhz processor, the 5150 with an AMD K6-2 350Mhz processor and the 5050, which uses a Celeron 333 processor. Rounding out the top five was the Hewlett-Packard 6355, running on a Celeron 333 processor.

Leading sales in the crucial December sales month was the Presario 5170, followed by the Presario 5150. After the iMac, the emachines etower, based on a Cyrix MII 266 processor, captured fourth place. In fifth was the Compaq 2266, which is based on a Cyrix MII 300 processor.

The popularity of iMac continues to increase Apple's market share since its mid-August rollout onto retail store shelves, resulting in a gain of almost 300 basis points in Apple's overall market share in the retail and mail order channel, from 6.7 percent in the second quarter to 9.6 percent in the fourth quarter. n

COPYRIGHT 1998 Millin Publishing, Inc.
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