Apple makes up lost ground

Apple has seen a dramatic turnaround in its market share figures for UK hardware sales made during the fourth quarter of last year.

According to figures produced by Context and published exclusively by PC Dealer, the vendor's market share jumped by 58 per cent from last year's figure, which showed negative growth of 28.9 per cent.

The rise was attributed to the fact that Apple had shipped its iMacs to spur the resurgence in the Macintosh platform.

For the year as a whole, the manufacturer saw the number of shipments made in the UK increase on a modest basis - it now holds 3.1 per cent of the market, up from 1997's figure of 2.8 per cent.

Due to the merger between Compaq and Digital, the combined organisation totalled 905,505 shipments during 1998, compared with the figure two years ago of 736,107 PCs.

IBM has slipped down the list in terms of shipments, coming in at fifth position, and has experienced a static year-on-year growth. Dell came second in the listing, followed by Toshiba and Packard Bell/NEC.

In next week's PC Dealer, we will publish the fourth-quarter market share of vendors, as well as comparisons of 1997 versus 1998 for the French and German markets.

See Market Watch, page 46.