Analysts report fast start for Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard had experienced high demand even before its release

Apple's Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system is faring better in the market than originally expected, according to analysts.

Research firm NPD Group said that early sales of Snow Leopard are ahead of its two predecessors, selling at roughly twice the speed of Leopard and four times that of Tiger.

Apple released Snow Leopard at the end of August as a partial upgrade. While Tiger users will pay full cost for the update, owners of Leopard pay only £25 for the new operating system.

Analysts suggested that the lowered price may be helping to push users to update their machines, and has kept the sales figures high.

"Even though some considered Snow Leopard to be less feature-focused than the releases of Leopard or Tiger, the ease of upgrading to Snow Leopard and the affordable pricing made it a win-win for Apple computer owners, thus helping to push sales to record numbers," said NPD vice president for industry analysis Stephen Baker.

Snow Leopard had experienced high demand even before its release. Pre-orders opened in early August, and the operating system claimed the top two spots in Amazon's software chart.

Since then, Snow Leopard sales have shown little sign of slowing down. Analysts noted that, although sales dipped 25 per cent after the first week, the drop was far lower than for Leopard and Tiger, both of which saw drop-offs of roughly 60 per cent.

Baker suggested that the quick start for Snow Leopard could set the bar for the success of Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 release.

"As we head into the Autumn selling season, and the release of another major operating system upgrade, it will be instructive to see if that upgrade, currently projected to sell at ASPs much higher than Snow Leopard, can deliver the same incremental increase in consumer demand that Snow Leopard has enjoyed, " the analyst said.