Coming off a boffo financial performance last year, Mac computer sales in January took some of the shine off Apple — but Mac owners continue to be very satisfied.
Those are the takeaways from two new industry reports. Earlier this week, the NPD Group released figures showing Mac retail sales have slowed, declining six percent compared with the same month a year ago. This is the first monthly drop Apple has had in about three years, and the NPD report also showed that monthly sales for Windows PCs jumped about 16 percent in January over the same month last year. The PC figures were pumped by the rise in netbook sales.
Additionally, NPD found that Apple’s retail market share, which had grown to 16.4 percent, also dropped in January, to 13.7 percent. The research firm said Apple’s premium pricing is causing cost-conscious consumers to think twice.
ChangeWave’s Survey
A recent survey by consumer research firm ChangeWave also indicated a drop in overall computer sales, as well as in planned purchases. In the next 90 days, ChangeWave said, only four percent of respondents plan to buy a desktop, a point less than the results from its previous monthly survey. Only six percent have plans to spend for a laptop, about the same as the previous report.
But Apple still scores best in consumer satisfaction, according to ChangeWave. Eighty-one percent of those who purchased a Mac in the last 90 days were described as very satisfied, compared to 67 percent for ASUS, 61 percent for Acer, 55 percent for Dell, and 52 percent for Hewlett-Packard.
The survey, conducted Feb. 2 through Feb. 9 among 3,115 consumers, found planned personal-computer buying to be “at the lowest level ever recorded in a ChangeWave survey.”
One category of computer, however, did have a sunny month. Netbooks, which are low-cost sub-notebooks, will be…