Jeremiah Yap

New York, NY

Overall tech sales declined last year by 2 percent, which is bad news for most companies except Apple. Apple held almost 20 percent of all consumer technology sales, according to market research firm NPD Group.

In 2011, Apple only held 17.3 percent of total consumer technology sales. Last year that figure increased to 19.9 percent.

Based on figures alone, Apple is leading rivals Samsung and Sony.

Samsung's sales also grew from 17.3 percent in 2011 to 9.3 percent last year. Apple and Samsung's total sales equaled to $6.5 billion last year.

"Most market segments have high penetration rates and the demand for additional devices is slowing, or declining. Tablets and smartphones have been able to stimulate demand for additional devices, but unfortunately it hasn't been enough, yet, to sustain positive growth trends," NPD analyst Stephen Baker said.

HP, Sony, and Dell all landed in third, fourth and fifth, respectively. These three companies saw their sales decline from 2011 to last year.

While tablet and smartphone sales increased, sales of notebooks, desktops and flat-panel TVs declined as experienced by HP, Sony, and Dell.

"After struggles with declining categories, and increasingly saturated markets over the last few years, fourth quarter's results may be the first sign that even as a mature industry consumer technology can grow again, albeit with a very different dynamic than in previous growth spurts," Baker added.

 

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Technology