The Macintosh line of computers may have been around since 1984, when the Macintosh 128K appeared on the market, but today the brand has reached a milestone of 5% of the global computer market, as AllThingsD reports.
While 5% doesn"t sound like a huge amount, the number of computers in the world means that Apple"s milestone is still not to be sniffed at. Increasing sales in the Asian Pacific and global enterprise has helped push OS X, and the hardware it runs on, beyond this milestone. Of course, this isn"t the first time Apple has managed to pass 5% of the global computer market with their Macs, though it has been quite some time since they last did. In fact, it has been fifteen years. Therefore, the current idea of 5% is much larger than their previously held 5%.
In the September quarter, Macintosh shipments increased by 24.6%; meanwhile, the rest of the PC market grew only 5.3%. The momentum of the Mac could bring it even further along since business acceptance has increased by an astonishing 43.8%. What makes this more impressive was the fact that the iPad was thought to of bit into Apple"s own Mac sales, in some demographics.
Analyst Charlie Wolf, of Needham & Co., said that "The iPad is undoubtedly cannibalizing some Mac sales". Cannibalizing may have been a strong word to use; it seems more like a light gnawing, if even that, but it could definitely be helping Apple fight against the sales of PCs.