Gartner found that Apple is number five in European PC sales, just below Acer, Dell, and Asus. They sold 966,000 units in 1Q11, 292,000 less than the fourth place winner. But wait… there’s more!
The most interesting point of the study is that Apple gained 10% over the past year in Western Europe overall while the rest of the PC manufacturers lost up to 29% of market share. Again, these are numbers for Western Europe overall and you see the same thing in separate countries including a 15% increase in the UK. However, Apple doesn’t rate in the top five in France and Germany, the latter where Samsung seems to be taking off.
Apple has traditionally been wildly expensive in Europe and perceived as almost impossible to find and buy in average retail environments. However, that’s clearly changing and with the roll out of improved retail operations and more support from the independents sales folks in each country makes things considerably easier. In fact, anecdotally, it seems that Europeans coming over here are barely looking at picking anything up here in America anymore because the prices are almost on parity. Is that the case where you are?