IDC

Apple's Mac sales fell (IDC) or grew (Gartner) last quarter

Why can't the two leading PC market tracking firms get their acts together?

FORTUNE -- In separate reports on the state of the worldwide personal computer market issued Wednesday, Gartner and IDC agreed about one thing: The quarter that ended in June was a miserable one for traditional PC vendors.

Gartner called the market "flat." IDC's term was "stalled." Both reported a decline in global shipments of 0.1%. Both attributed it to MORE

Was Amazon's Kindle Fire just a flash in the pan?

Sales of the Kindle e-readers have apparently also fallen off a cliff

FORTUNE -- Thursday was bad-news day for Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle line of tablets and e-readers.

IDC released first quarter tablet sales data that had Kindle Fire shipments falling from 4.8 million in the Christmas quarter to less than 750,000 units last quarter. "Kindle Fire Shipments Fizzle" was the headline on AllThingsD.
E Ink Holdings, the sole supplier of black-and-white screens for MORE

Mac U.S. shipments grew 3.8% last quarter. Or was it 5.1%?

Why can't Gartner and IDC just get along?

You used to be able to explain the discrepancies between Gartner's and IDC's quarterly market share reports by the difference in their methodologies.

Gartner counted sales to end users. IDC counted sales into "channel" -- i.e. devices sold to stores and other distribution points, but not necessarily to customers.

But when trying to understand the discrepancy between Apple's (AAPL) U.S. market share in the reports MORE

IDC: iPhone is No. 3 worldwide

Apple's mobile phone shipments nearly doubled in 2011, overtaking LG and ZTE

On the strength of sales of the iPhone 4S last quarter, Apple (AAPL) jumped two spots in IDC's ranking of the world's five largest manufacturers of mobile phones -- smart or otherwise.

In a press release issued Wednesday, IDC reported that weakness in the demand for so-called feature phones dragged down market growth in the Christmas quarter -- usually the MORE

Mac sales zigged as Windows PC sales sagged in Q4

Apple is the only bright spot in the industry's worst quarter in a decade

Fourth quarter personal computer numbers for the U.S. market came in from Gartner and IDC Wednesday and for the second quarter in a row, Apple (AAPL) sales grew like gangbusters while the Microsoft (MSFT) Windows PC market actually shrank.

Apple sales in the U.S. were up 20.7%, according to Gartner, while HP (HPQ) was down 21.6%, Dell (DELL) MORE

Gartner: Mac grew 20 times faster than the PC market in Q3

IDC gives Apple an even bigger edge, with Mac's U.S. shipments outpacing PCs 80 to 1

Tim Cook may not have seen the latest numbers. Or perhaps he's just more modest than Steve Jobs was. But he understated matters somewhat when he told the press last week that the Mac outgrew the PC market almost six times in the year ending in June and that it had outpaced its competitors every MORE

IDC: iPad gained market share in Q2, Android tablets lost

The worldwide tablet market grew 303.8% year over year, and it's mostly Apple's

Since IDC launched its Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker in January, its coverage of the tablet market has been, shall we say, spotty.

Its tracking report for the first quarter of 2011 didn't arrive until July, causing serious confusion among some high-profile tech writers who mistook it for a second-quarter report (see What slowdown in tablet sales?).

IDC's MORE

Apple overtakes Nokia to become the world's No. 1 smartphone maker

The next contender: Samsung, whose Android phones are gaining fast

The companies that track mobile phone sales are just now catching up to the news that came out of Apple's (AAPL) last week. According to the company's Q3 earnings report, Apple sold nearly 20.24 million iPhones last quarter, up 142% from the same quarter last year.

On Thursday, IDC reported that that makes Apple the world's No. 4 manufacturer of all mobile MORE

Apple's 'jaw-dropping' third quarter: The analysts weigh in

A sampling of reactions to Apple's (AAPL) profits growing 125% year over year

IDC's Al Hilwa:  "Apple's growth in the third quarter was simply jaw-dropping. In 20 years of following tech I have seen very few companies in the $90 to $100 billion run-rate and none that have produced 80% organic quarterly growth. The success of the iPad truly crystallizes the point that we are living in an era of rapid MORE

What slowdown in tablet sales?

A report from IDC sets off some pretty silly headlines in the tech press

The top item on the closely-watched Techmeme news aggregator Saturday morning was a piece by ZDNet's Larry Dignan about how the shipments of tablet computers have failed to meet the industry's "lofty expectations."

It was a theme picked up by at least eight other news outlets, including VentureBeat ("Tablet sales slow"), The Loop ("'media tablet' market isn't as MORE