Apple is doing very good in Europe, well surpassing the industry average, according to analysts at IDC.

Both in the UK and in Western Europe, the growth of Apple shipments has outperformed the rest of the PC industry for both portables and desktops in the first quarter. Apple's overall first quarter market share was 2.9, across all models; specifically, in the portable market it had 3.4 percent, and in the desktop one it secured 2.65 percent.

While the numbers don't look like much, the 3.4 percent market share for portables is a 50.15 percent year-on-year improvement for the company, a far cry from the industry average, which was 20.44 percent in the same period. Similarly, the desktop sales saw a 27.38 percent, year on year growth.

While the desktop numbers are less important than the portable ones, they are still big when taken into account the fact that the overall value of the desktop computer market fell 6.16 percent year on year.

In Western Europe, Apple holds 2.6 percent of the desktop market and 2.5 percent of the notebook market, seeing a rise in unit sales of 11.7 percent and 18.3 percent, year on year.

Meanwhile the overall EMEA market climbed only 1.8 percent and 2 percent, leaving Apple rising at a much faster rate than the rest of the PC pack.