Apple Becomes Sixth Largest Worldwide PC Vendor

In case you haven’t noticed, Apple has been enjoying some incredible growth over the past few years. Whether it’s due to OS X’s simplicity or Windows Vista’s major issues, I’m unsure, but Apple has become more than just a serious contender in the PC market, and it’s good to see. It took them quite a while to really cause a major shift in the computer industry, but now it’s rare to see a developer of some sort without a MacBook.

Their success has landed them as the sixth largest PC manufacturer worldwide, though Ars Technica doesn’t share direct numbers to give some insight. As it stands, it’s impossible to even guess a number. Sixth in the world is a big deal, but other manufacturers, like HP, Dell and Acer would each share a huge portion of that 100%, which wouldn’t leave much for the fourth place and higher.

But that’s not what’s important… even 1% of the world market would be incredible, and surely Apple has that now. The growth shows no sign of slowdown, either, but given the recent advent of netbooks and mini-notebooks, their increase might begin to slow down. That is, of course, unless the Cupertino company decides to release one of their own…

“While this is good news for Apple and its shareholders, Gartner echoes other assessments that Apple may have a tough road ahead considering that PC manufacturers have brought the budget battle to ultra-portable, ultra-cheap notebooks. Asus’ Eee PC and its many competitors are ushering in a new era of $400 notebooks and cheap desktops which, as we noted back April, are very appealing to areas like Asia and South America where markets aren’t as saturated.