Tuesday, December 16, 2003, 11:00 am

Apple surpasses half million mark for Power Mac G5 sales

By Kasper Jade

Sales of Apple's new PowerMac G5 product-line have topped over the half million mark, sources told AppleInsider this week. The dual 2GHz model remains the most popular among holiday shoppers, but is closely followed by the dual 1.8 GHz configuration. Sales of the company's single processor 1.6GHz model are said to be trailing far behind its multiprocessor counterparts.

Meanwhile, sales of the company's elder Power Mac G4s are almost non-existent, sources said, with only 8000 units being sold this quarter--mainly to customers who still require the ability to boot into Mac OS 9.0. Last quarter Apple shipped 221,000 Power Mac units, fueled by over 100,000 pre-orders for the Power Mac G5. At the current rate, sales of the Power Mac G5 could surpass 300,000 units for the quarter, analysts said. The last time the company shattered the 300,000 sales figure for Power Macs was back in Quarter 3 of 2000, when it sold 351,000 Power Mac G4s.