What is Apple doing right in the PC market?

What is Apple doing right in the PC market? And what, exactly, did it do wrong in the first quarter of 2006?

Those are the two questions that occur in looking at some of the numbers pushed out by Charles Wolf, an analyst at Needham. He's posted an investment note on Apple which points out that Apple's Mac shipments have grown faster than the PC market for the past 20 quarters (that's five years in normal money).

He's also noted that in the first quarter of this year, when Mac shipments grew by 27.7% while the PC market shrank by 1.2% year-on-year (by IDC's numbers; Gartner's show a 0.94% fall) Mac shipment growth occurred in "every single regional market". In Europe, they grew 10% against a PC market down 17.5%; in Asia up 69.4% (v PC market up 8.8%); in Japan, up 21.1% (PCs down 16.1%). All figures are IDC data, and all year-on-year.


More: Apple computer sales grow faster than PC sales for five years - but why?