According to the most recent statistics shared by market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC), Apple' sales of its Mac computers witnessed in a slump during the second quarter, with the company selling fewer number of Macs during the quarter vis-a-vis the US Mac sales figures for the same quarter last year.

Going by the IDC's Thursday-released statistics, in what apparently was Apple's first US Mac sales slump in 3 years, the US sales of Macs during the April-June quarter witnessed a 1.1 percent plunge to 1.81 million, from the 2011 same quarter figures of 1.83 million.

Elaborating about the procedure which the PC tracking team followed to arrive at the estimates, IDC analyst David Daoud referred to quarter-by-quarter comparisons, and said that the team has observed the "sequential movement" for Apple.

Noting that "sequential movement" is often considered to be "a good predictor of what to expect," Daoud said that though the team believed that there would be a "normal pattern" from the first quarter to the second quarter, factors like "very weak demand in the broader economy" led to a lowering of Apple's quarterly growth figures.

With the second-quarter US Mac sales plunge being the first drop since early 2009, when the country was economic downturn, IDC said that the drop was also apparently an upshot of uncertainty among consumers about whether to purchase a tablet or a computer, and postponed purchases due to looming operating system upgrades.