Apple’s $46.33 billion dollar holiday quarter and the 73+ million shipped Macs and iOS devices are clear standouts in the newest NPD research note exposing Apple as the only brand to have grown sales in the all-important holiday quarter. The same cannot be said for rivals Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Sony, and Dell, which all experienced missteps in holiday-quarter gadget sales. Five consumer electronics categories (PCs, TVs, tablets/e-readers, mobile phones and video game hardware) drove nearly 60 percent of all sales in 2011. Apple’s share of total revenue across these five important categories rose 36 percent year-over-year, according to NPD.
By the way, did you notice which two consumer electronics categories lack a dedicated Apple offering?
As portable devices, such as smartphones and tablets, increasingly become Jack-of-all-trades, consumers are less incentivized to pick niche gadgets. This results in an 8 percent sales decline outside of the top five categories, NPD said. The research firm pegged the total market for consumer electronics in the holiday quarter at nearly $144 billion, which is a 0.5 percent year-over-year decline. Notebook and desktop PCs accounted for almost 20 percent of all sales, and tablets/e-readers have more than doubled their share of consumer electronics dollars from 5.1-percent in 2010 to 10.7-percent last year.
- IDC says Samsung was 2011′s top Smartphone vendor, here are the numbers (9to5google.com)
- NPD: During October-November, iPhone 4S boosts Apple’s U.S. smartphone share, now within spitting distance of Android (9to5mac.com)
- Gartner: No one in the world uses more semiconductors than Apple (9to5mac.com)
- Apple is the only PC brand making progress in Europe (and that’s without iPad) (9to5mac.com)
- Apple becomes the top smartphone vendor in US as Siri helps iPhone 4S outsell iPhone 4 by 75 percent (9to5mac.com)
