Apple gains foothold in PC market


18 Mar 2008

The success of the MacBook range and the recent release of the ultra-light MacBook Air has seen sales of both Apple’s desktop and notebook lines increase by 55pc and 64pc respectively in the past year alone.

According to market research firm NPD, this level of sales is an increase of 9pc on February of last year and represents 14pc of the US market share for the Cupertino-based company.

Most recently, Apple has been expanding its retail presence in Europe by opening new stores to Northern Ireland, Germany and Switzerland later this year, adding to the 13 Apple stores currently in the UK as well as outlets in Italy.

Apple’s recent retail success may be a combination of the new commercially successful ultra-thin MacBook Air as well as the company’s advertising campaign of Mac versus Windows as well as the company’s focus on unified software across its range of products.

Apple’s web browsing software Safari, such as Window’s Internet Explorer, has just received an update — Safari 3.1 claims to load web pages 1.9 times faster than its rival Internet Explorer and 1.7 times faster than open source alternative Firefox 2.

The Apple powered web browser also claims to load JavaScript up to six times faster than its competitors and to be the first to integrate the latest web standards that drive ‘Web 2.0’ or next-generation web applications.

“Safari 3.1 for Mac and Windows is blazingly fast, easy to use and features an elegant user interface and best of all supports the latest audio, video and animation standards for an industry-leading Web 2.0 experience,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior-vice-president of worldwide product marketing.

By Marie Boran