Gartner: Apple sells 1.4 million Macs in U.S.; captures 8% market share

Apple's share of the U.S. market for computers grew 34 percent year over year as the company sold an estimated 1.4 million Macs, according to new research.

Gartner estimates that Apple now has 8 percent of the total domestic market for PCs, and for the first three months of 2010 was the fifth-largest PC vendor, behind HP, Dell, Acer and Toshiba.

Hype for the new iPad likely helped Mac sales for the quarter, Gartner says.

Amazingly, both Acer (No. 3) and Toshiba (No. 4) bested Apple, posting 50 percent growth year over year:

Total estimated PC shipments in the U.S. were 17.4 million for the first quarter of 2010. That represents a 20.2 percent increase from the same time period in 2009, and marks two consecutive quarters of double-digit shipment growth in America.

A few more data points about Apple's competition:

• HP and Dell saw year-over-year growth below the industry average at 7.1 percent and 7.2 percent, respectively.
• HP currently has 25 percent of the U.S. market.
• Dell currently has 23.4 percent of the U.S. market.
• Acer currently has 15.6 percent of the U.S. market (50.9 percent YoY growth)
• Toshiba currently has 8.6 percent of the market (50 percent YoY growth)

The standings aren't much different worldwide:

• HP is No. 1 with 18.2 percent market share.
• Acer, is No. 2 with 14.2 percent market share.
• Dell is No. 3 with 12.1 percent market share.
• Lenovo is No. 4 with 8.3 percent market share.
• Asus is No. 5 with 5.5 percent market share.
• Toshiba is No. 6 with 5.5 percent market share.

Apple did not make the worldwide top vendor list.

Research firm IDC found similar results as Gartner, but only said Apple grew 8.3 percent year over year and had a 7 percent drop in market share from Q1 2009.