Research group Gartner released preliminary PC shipment results for the fourth quarter of 2011, showing that Apple climbed to third place among U.S. PC vendors as the rest of the top five vendors saw shipments decline year over year. Apple saw 20.7 percent growth of Mac sales in the U.S. market from the year ago quarter, and took the No. 3 spot behind HP and Dell.
However, customers shied away from the world's largest PC maker in the fourth quarter, causing a 26.1 percent decline year over year. Shipments fell from 5.6 million in the last quarter of 2010 to 4.1 million. Dell had a 4.5 percent decline in shipments from 4.2 million in the year ago quarter to 4.0 million in the most recent quarter.
Research firm Gartner recently released its estimates of PC sales in Western Europe for the third quarter of 2011. Despite the overall decline of 11.4% for the market, Apple’s sales in Western Europe were up 19.6% year-over-year. In mobile PC market Apple showed the most significant performance of 28%, comparing to the last year performance.
Gartner especially paid attention to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, noting that in the UK Apple became one of five top vendors. Apple’s sales here increased up to 21.8% year-over-year. So now the company takes the fourth place in the United Kingdom with 7.8% of the market. Apple’s rival Samsung goes slightly behind with 7.3% of the market, despite the fact that Samsung’s growth there was 39%.
As for the U.S. PC market, Apple took 12.9% for the third quarter, demonstration significant increase in sales both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.
TomTom is discounting their navigation apps. For example, US and US+Canada are down to $50 and $70 respectively, Western Europe is $90. They've done this before, so it's not unprecedented. However $10 discount is a good deal if you're looking for an iPhone Navigation.
TomTom navigation application updated to version 1.2. Added features include updates to maps and IQ Routes, advanced lane guidance, text-to-speech, integrated iPod player support and support for the iPod Touch and first-generation iPhone 2G.
To use the app on iPod Touch and iPhone 2G, TomTom's car kit is required. This is due to the fact that both devices lack an integrated GPS receiver. TomTom's car kit is a cradle which contains a GPS module, integrated speaker, charger, and line out. It is not required when the TomTom app is paired with the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The cost for the kit without the app is $119.95.
Full list of what's new in 1.2:
Improved search and route summary screens
Updated map from v8.30 to v8.35
Updated points of interest database
Updated IQ Routes database with millions of new measurements
Added Advanced Lane Guidance in both portrait and landscape mode
Added Text-to-speech in English US, English UK, English Australia, French Canada, Spanish Latin America
Added Help Me! emergency menu
Added iPod player support
Added support for original iPhone and iPod touch (all models)
The TomTom app is available in App Store for $49.99-$139.99 (link). Price depends on the map coverage. The highest price is for TomTom Western Europe. US & Canada costs $99.99. The cheapest version is for Hong-Kong - just $49.99.
Each European App Store is also carrying a fifth TomTom application offering a more narrowly localized version for the respective countries at a lower (~$30-40) price than the complete Western Europe version.
Benelux (iTunes link): offered in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and covers those three countries
D-A-CH (iTunes link): Germany, Austria and Switzerland
France (iTunes link): France and covers France, Monaco and Corsica
Iberia (iTunes link): Spain and Portugal and covers Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Gibraltar, the major islands of the Balearic and Canary Island groups.
Italy (iTunes link): Italy, San Marino and Vatican City
Nordic (iTunes link): Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden and covers those four countries
U.K. & Ireland (iTunes link) - the U.K. and Ireland
iPhoneclub reports that four regional versions of TomTom iPhone navigation application have appeared in Apple's New Zealand App Store: U.S. & Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.We are expecting TomTom to appear in other AppStores.
Pricing is as follows (Users should set their iTunes Store to "New Zealand" prior to clicking the App Store links.):
- U.S. & Canada (App Store link): NZ $124.99 (US $84.41)
- Western Europe (App Store link): NZ $179.99 (US $121.55)
- Australia (App Store link): NZ $104.99 (US $70.90)
- New Zealand (App Store link): NZ $119.99 (US $81.03)
The App Store application prices include only the iPhone application and not the companion car kit.
AdMob published it's June report, showing detailed statistics about smartphone market. As for iPhone 54% of iPhone OS devices are currently in the US; however, this number has slowly declined from 61% in the last six months, implying that international users are growing faster than those in the US. Following the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France each have over 5% of users. As a region, Western Europe has a 26% share of iPhone and iPod touch users.
Based on Apple guidance, the company has shipped 26.4 million iPhones and approximately 18.6 million iPod touches to date.
Here is a table, that shows the number of iPhones by country:
Here's some interesting statistics about smartphone traffic. Sounds like Apple is looking quite good in both the US and the rest of the world: