Apple takes a bigger bite of the PC market despite new range of ultrabooks

Consumers are finding the lure of Apple Mac computers increasingly hard to resist, having bought some 267,000 of them here in the UK in the final quarter of 2011.

Conversely, Windows PC sales are facing their worst decline in five quarters, with a lack of demand cited as being key to the sluggish trading conditions. Market leader HP had sales down by 27 per cent, Dell was down 32 per cent while Toshiba slipped just 5 per cent.

Apple was bucking the trend according to latest figures from Gartner and it doesn’t include tablet devices as PCs either, which suggests that the American computer giant is likely to do even better this year. Apple fans are already queuing up for the imminent release of the iPad 3 and a brand new iPhone is also expected to appear in a few months time.

However, Microsoft is set to unveil Windows 8 later this year, which PC manufacturers hope will help to kick-start the PC market again. But, with Apple now grabbing 17.2 per cent of the home computer market, the latest Windows offering will need to be well up to scratch in order to entice people away from the cool appeal of Apple and its products.

Industry commentators point to a whole new range of super-thin ultra book PCs that were unveiled at this years Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as being the possible way forward for ailing PC sales. Ironically, those were largely inspired by the popular appeal of the MacBook Air, another Apple success story despite its high price tag.

"The UK market has been a prime illustration of the underlying weakness in PC demand across Western Europe," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.
"PC vendors face a long, uphill struggle to regain the interest of consumers. The introduction of ultrabooks in late 2011 is desperately needed."