Sales of Apple Macintosh computers grew 30% year-to-year in the first quarter of 2007, despite interest in Microsoft’s newly introduced Vista operation system.

The growth in units sold for all computer vendors was 2.9%, making the growth in Mac sales 10 times the industry average.

Microsoft’s official consumer launch of Vista in January had very limited impact on overall worldwide shipment demand on a quarterly basis. On a monthly basis, some regions experienced a bubble in demand following its release. Vista adoption was primarily in the consumer and very small business segments of the mature regions.

Q1 ’06 to Q1 ’07 Growth

Source: Gartner Dataquest (April 2007)

Acer moved into the No. 3 position for worldwide PC shipments in the first quarter. The company’s shipment growth well exceeded the industry average across all regions. Although Lenovo dropped to the No. 4 position, the company achieved its highest year-over-year growth rate since its acquisition of IBM’s PC division.

In the U.S. PC market, PC shipments grew 2.9 percent in the first quarter compared to a year ago. These results were higher than Gartner’s forecast which called for 0.6 percent growth. “The home segment continued to drive PC shipment growth in the U.S. market,” said Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa,.

Dell maintained the No. 1 position in the first quarter of 2007 (see Table 2), but its shipment growth was well below the industry average. The company’s results were mainly attributed to its weakness in the home market.

HP narrowed the gap with Dell for the top spot in the U.S. market. Early indications show that HP’s growth was driven by strong retail business and a steady increase of small and midsize business (SMB).

More coverage at Apple Insider and CrunchGear.