Apple sales via independent distributors across Western Europe soared 42 per cent in Q1, figures from channel analyst Context reveal.

The sales-out numbers detailed by the beancounter's Vendor Performance Monitor (VPM) shows that the majority of growth was generated by the previous generation of iPads, up 180 per cent.

This is in stark contrast to the woeful shipments stats for the new iPad, as revealed earlier this week, with disties being sent just 140,000 units across the region in the first two weeks after launch.

Growth in sales of Apple notebooks were far less dramatic, up 4.2 per cent year-on-year, though still much better than the 8.9 per cent decline reported for the overall market in Q1.

Desktop revenues generated by wholesalers for the fruity vendor were up 16.4 per cent versus a total market decline of 2.3 per cent.

VPM numbers also revealed that total smartphone sales through the IT crowd were on the up, rising nearly 55 per cent in the quarter, but again Apple blew rivals out of the water, with sales leaping 120.8 per cent.

"Apple has traditionally been much more of a retail player," said Jeremy Davies, CEO at Context, but added that "the figures show that the company is clearly engaging more with IT channels in an attempt to get increased traction in the prosumer space".

As revealed by The Reg last year, Apple poached HP's PC sales director Trevor Evans to head up its assault on the corporate market, potentially cashing in on the BYOD trend among senior heads and the under 30s. ®