Mac sales grow strongly in April and are not affected by the iPad

In a report released today, the NPD Group stated that Mac sales grew 39% in April, coinciding with the arrival of the new MacBooks Pro on the market. The hope of the company's investors on the stock exchange that it will achieve at least a 19% 23% growth compared to the second quarter of 2009, then the new estimate released today is much more encouraging.

At the current pace, Apple has the potential to sell up to 3.2 million Macs by the end of June, with no noticeable signs of cannibalization on the part of the iPad, which was also launched last month. Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, believes that the tablet's arrival on the market showed a small sign of a drop in interest in Ma's computers, but the NPD data was well above the average expected anyway.

For Munster, the beginning of the iPad did not influence the Mac more strongly because Apple knew how to limit its functions so that it was nothing more than a device intended to consume content. However, another analysis by ABI Research suggests that netbooks in general will see a considerable drop in sales during the year, due to the emergence of tablets.

Although the Mac is not suffering from any serious sign of cannibalization due to the iPad, the same cannot be said about iPods, whose sales were up 17% compared to last year in NPD figures. This is an area that has already been affected by the iPhone in the past; however, the iPad should make things a little more difficult.