NPD Group: US MacBook sales took a 6 percent hit during 2012 holidays

NPD Group is reporting that sales of Apple's MacBook line were 6 percent lower during the period between November 18 and December 22, 2012 than during the same period in 2011.

The report, as described by John Virata of AppleInsider, notes that the average selling price of all MacBooks sold was up about US$100 from 2011 to $1,419 as well. Part of the explanation behind the drop in US MacBook sales could be that the only really new Mac notebook released in the run-up to the holiday shopping season was the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. In late 2011, Apple kickstarted sales of the entire MacBook Pro line by adding faster Intel processors, improved GPUs and hard drives with increased capacities.

There's one bright side to the numbers, though -- at least sales of MacBooks didn't take the same hit as Windows PCs. NPD's figures showed an 11 percent drop in sales of notebooks running Windows, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the launch of Windows 8. Those touchscreen notebooks running Windows 8 that were hyped in advertisements had an average selling price of $700, but only accounted for 4.5 percent of Windows notebook sales.