Apple cleaning up in high-end computer market

Apple's doing well in the high-rent district of the US computer industry, according to NPD.

On Friday, eWeek published some data confirmed by NPD that reveals Apple now owns 66 per cent of the US retail market for personal computers that cost more than $1,000 (£500). Its percentage of the US retail market in general is 14 per cent, according to NPD.

Apple only sells one Mac below $1,000 (£500) -- the Mac mini -- so it's not too surprising that it would do well in that category, given the momentum behind Mac sales over the past year. By contrast, the single largest category of notebooks available at Best Buy -- when sorted by price -- falls between $700 (£350) and $899 ($450). And two-thirds of the desktops on the site are priced below $1,000 (£500).

These numbers don't include many sales -- such as corporate PCs that account for about half the market, and online-heavy sellers such as Dell -- but tend to illustrate trends in the US PC market over time. Apple only had about 18 per cent of the same category in January 2006, according to Fortune. That was the same month Apple introduced its first Intel-based Mac.

This is a profitable category, however, that all PC companies covet. PC companies may be reaching corporate customers at those price points, but Apple is dominating the consumer half of the high-end.