Apple rises as Bernstein says IDC not 'historically' a leading indicator for Mac revenue
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Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares rose fractionally in premarket trading on Tuesday as investment firm Bernstein defended the company after a research firm said Mac sales tumbled in the first-quarter. 
Analyst Toni Sacconaghi, who has a market perform rating on Apple (AAPL), said that while Apple (AAPL) previously guided to a "strong decline" in Mac revenue for this quarter, data from research firms IDC and Gartner have not "historically" been accurate when it comes to predicting Mac-related revenue.
Earlier this week, IDC said Mac sales performed worse than the overall PC market in the first quarter, dropping 40.5% from the year-ago period to 4.1M units.
Overall PC sales declined 29% year-over-year to 56.9M units in the period, as weak demand, excess inventory and the continued deterioration of the global economy continued to weigh on consumer electronics.
As it pertains to the broader PC market, Sacconaghi said the first-quarter data from IDC may have shown some "incremental sequential channel inventory drawdown," suggesting that underlying demand was better than normal on a seasonal basis.
"Moreover, we note that [year-over-year] growth was largely inline with last quarter, suggesting that demand may be bottoming," Sacconaghi wrote in an investor note.
Amongst other PC vendors, Sacconaghi said he's "more confident" in HP's (HPQ) ability to meet or beat estimates than he is for Dell (DELL), but there is no "significant downside risk for either."
HP (HPQ) shares gained fractionally in premarket trading while Dell (DELL) lost ground.
Last week, Apple (AAPL) said it will open its first official retail store in India in the financial district of Mumbai.