It certainly was a good day for Cupertino-based electronics company, Apple Inc. The company’s stock hit an all-time high of $301.96 per share — before closing at a more modest $300.14 per share — and, according to Gartner research, Apple now holds 10.4% of U.S. computer sales.
Market analytic firm Gartner is reporting that U.S. PC sales grew by roughly 2.2% from Q3 in 2009 to Q3 in 2010. In that same time period, Apple PC shipments increased by 13.7% to total 1.83 million units. Apple is now positioned fourth in shipments amongst U.S. PC manufacturers, trailing third-place Acer by roughly 17,000 units. HP and Dell hold the number one and two spots respectively and collectively account for over 50% of U.S. PC sales.
Gartner’s study isn’t all flowers and lollipops for Apple. The iCompany did not manage to break into the top six vendors in worldwide PC shipments for Q3; the top six companies are (in order): HP, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Toshiba. The worldwide PC market grew 7.6% year-over-year.
If the lack of international mojo has the folks in Cupertino feeling a bit inadequate, just remember this: your market capitalization is currently $274.2 billion… that’s just over a quarter of a trillion dollars and more than double the market caps of HP and Dell combined.
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