The release of new MacBook Airs and the Mac OS X Lion operating system last month helped spur double-digit growth for the Mac maker, which is now estimated to sell a record 4.5 million systems during its ongoing September quarter.



From Apple Insider:

Preliminary figures for the PC sales released by market research firm NPD on Monday indicate that sales of Macs in the United States rose 26% year-over-year in July, which puts the Mac maker on a pace to meet consensus estimates of 4.5 million total sales for the three-month period ending September.

Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, attributed the rise to new Mac products but warned that it will be more challenging for Apple to maintain such growth throughout the quarter, as the company saw 29% and 20% respective growth rates during August and September of 2010, compared to July's 14%.

  Apple's Lion drives 26% rise in Mac sales during July