According to NPD beancounters, Apple's desktop retail share in the US market has jumped to 47.7 percent, up from 33.4 percent a year ago.

The numbers are quite surprising, so surprising in fact that we would like to see how NPD gathered them. It apparently measured retail and e-tail sales to compile the numbers, but no full report was made public to go along with the numbers. We wonder whether NPD has any way of including PCs built at home in the statistic. In the notebook market, Apple saw a slight drop, from 38 percent in October 2008 to 34 percent in October 2009.

It is also quite interesting to look at Apple's average selling prices. Whereas the run of the mill PC sold in October cost the average consumer $491, the average Mac desktop cost the smug consumer $1,338. The price difference is similar in the notebook market, too. The average PC notebook cost $519, while a MacBook would set you back $1,510.

Basically, although Apple sold fewer units, it had significantly higher revenues, and obscenely high margins.
 
More here.