Snow Leopard Leaps To Record SalesSnow Leopard Leaps To Record Sales

During the first two weeks of its release, Snow Leopard outsold Apple's two previous operating systems by a wide margin and set a record for the Mac maker.

Sales of Apple's latest OS were more than two times higher than its predecessor, Leopard, and almost four times more than Leopard's predecessor, Tiger, according to the NPD Group, which tracks retail sales, excluding online sales.

Snow Leopard outsold prior versions, despite being less feature focused. The reasons for its high adoption rate are the ease of upgrading and the low price, which made the OS a "win-win for Apple computer owners -- thus helping to push sales to record numbers," NPD analyst Stephen Baker said in a statement.

Snow Leopard, released Aug. 28, had legs even after the first week, with sales declining by only 25% from week one to week two, NPD said. Sales of Leopard and Tiger fell by more than 60% from opening week volumes.

"With pricing reduced by more than $100 for both the single-user and five-user pack versus Leopard pricing, Apple has clearly demonstrated that aggressive pricing policies in this economic environment generate an outstanding consumer response," Baker said.

Microsoft is scheduled to release its latest OS, Windows 7, on Oct. 22 at much higher prices than Snow Leopard. Therefore, it'll be interesting to see whether the software maker "can deliver the same incremental increase in consumer demand that Snow Leopard has enjoyed," Baker said.

Snow Leopard's initial success came despite reports that more than 100 Mac applications, games, and software utilities were not fully compatible with the OS. In addition, users reported a system freeze known as "the spinning wheel of death" when they tried to upgrade to the new OS. The term referred to an endless display of a rotating icon. Apple acknowledged the problem and offered a fix.

Apple on Sept. 10 released an update to Snow Leopard, fixing a variety of flaws in the OS.

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