Office 2007 flying off the shelves?

Sales of Office 2007 were substantially better than those of Office 2003 during the first week after launching, according to a study comparing retail and commercial figures for both products.

In the first week after its release in late January, Office 2007 unit sales grew 108.6 per cent compared with the first week of sales for Office 2003, according to a preliminary report released by the NPD Group, a consumer and retail trade researcher.

While the average selling price for Office 2007 declined 1.1 per cent to $206.93, the dollar volume jumped by 106.3 per cent compared with Office 2003, the report noted.

Chris Swenson, NPD director of software industry analysis, said: "Unit shipments grew faster than dollars." He noted that sales of the cheaper Home and Student editions of Office contributed to the dip in average selling price.

NPD, however, said its preliminary figures are conservative, given that one participating retailer in its survey did not supply its information in time to be considered for the report.

Office 2007 commercial unit sales, meanwhile, climbed approximately 61.3 per cent during its first month of sales, compared with Office 2003 in its first month, the report noted. The new version of Office was released to business customers in November.

Dollar volume rose 97.8 per cent in the first month of Office 2007 commercial sales to value-added resellers, compared with the first month of Office 2003, the report noted. And the average selling price rose 22.6 per cent over Office 2003 to $301.33 in its first month of sales.

Swenson said: "The Office 2007 launch was extremely successful, no matter how you look at it - whether it's the weekly or monthly sales."

He added that the launch performance of Office 2007 and Vista came as a surprise to him.

Swenson said: "With almost zero advertising and marketing until the 30 January, 2007 retail launch, I expected US commercial licence sales of Office 2007, as with Windows Vista, to be significantly below Windows XP sales in its first full month on the market. They weren't. They were significantly better."

Dawn Kawamoto writes for CNET News.com