The i’s have it: Intel and iPod helped drive quarterly sales and profit up sharply at Apple Computer Inc. as the company continued to dominate portable entertainment and gained traction against rival computer makers.
Apple’s shift this year to chips made by Intel Corp. boosted sales of Macintosh computers to their highest level since the 1999 holiday season. Sales were also helped by a broader shift in the PC industry away from corporate buyers and toward average people.
Those gains gave Apple 6.1% of the U.S. computer market, eclipsing Toshiba Corp. and closing in on Gateway Inc., according to industry researcher Gartner Inc. That’s still well behind the 16.3% share of Hewlett-Packard Co., which reclaimed the title of world’s biggest PC maker from Dell Inc. on Wednesday.
Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said the Cupertino, Calif., company was “incredibly pleased with what is a blowout Mac quarter.” Overall Mac sales grew at three times IDC Research Inc.’s market growth projections and laptop shipments climbed 56%.
With the resonable prices of the mactels and bootcamp its only going to improve.