Apple sold 267,000 Macs in the UK in the final quarter of 2011, increasing its share of the PC market in this country to 9.1 percent.
That’s according to figures from analyst firm Gartner, which showed Apple increasing its market share by 17.2 percent from the final quarter of 2010, when it sold 228,000 Macs.
The increase bucks the trend in the UK, where rival vendors have struggled over the last year. HP retained its top position in market share terms though saw its share decline from 23.1 percent in Q4 2010 to 21 percent in Q4 2011.
Dell took second spot, though saw its share of the UK market drop from 16.4 percent to 13.8 percent. Toshiba grew its market share from 8.5 percent to 10 percent but saw shipments for the quarter drop to 296,000 compared to 313,000 in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Acer, though, took the biggest hit posting negative growth of 62.4 percent with shipments dropping from 610,000 in the 2010 fourth quarter to just 230,000 in the same quarter for 2011, giving it a 7.8 percent share of the market, putting the company behind Apple. In the 2010 fourth quater, Acer had been the second largest vendor of PCs in the UK with a market share of 16.7 percent.
The overall PC market in the UK was down by 19.6 percent, with 2.9 million units shipped in the quarter compared to 3.7 million in the final quarter of 2010.
“The UK market has been a prime illustration of the underlying weakness in PC demand across Western Europe,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.
“PC vendors face a long, uphill struggle to regain the interest of consumers. The introduction of Ultrabooks in late 2011 is desperately needed.”
The PC market in Western Europe declined by 16 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the same period in 2011. For the entire year, PC shipments numbered 58.5 million units in Western Europe in 2011, also a 16 percent decrease from 2010.
