Driven by Home Market, Mac Sales to Outpace PC Market

2010 will be a better year for the PC industry than 2009. And it will be even better for Apple. According to Caris & Company analyst Robert Cihra, Mac sales have outpaced the PC market as a whole by 1.8 times over the last three years, and that trend will continue in 2010.

Cihra expects Mac sales to grow by 26 percent next year, while the broader industry sees only a 16 percent increase. Growth like that would give Apple a four percent share of the market, leaving “considerable headroom” for future sales, says Cihra (see charts; click to enlarge).

Not all that surprising really. Apple (AAPL) shipped a record 3.05 million Macs in its latest quarter, a 16.4 percent increase, which far exceeded the 2.3 percent growth the PC market saw. How is the company doing it?

Simple: Apple dominates the home market. As Needham & Co. senior analyst Charlie Wolf noted in a research report earlier this week, one out every 10 dollars spent on home computers worldwide goes to Apple. And in the U.S., the company claims more than one in five.

“The twin drivers of the Mac’s rebound were the home market’s continued share gains in the PC market and the Mac’s share gains in the home market itself,” Wolf wrote. “Shipments in the worldwide home market increased 18.1 percent compared to an 11.5 percent decline in all other PC segments, while Mac shipments in the home market increased 28.8 percent. In the Western European home market, shipments rose an impressive 58.9 percent.”

Given Wolf’s analysis and Cihra’s prediction, it will be interesting to see what sort of marker share Apple ends up with come 2011.

[Image Credit: Apple Insider and Needham & Co.]