ComputerWare, a San Francisco Bay Area retailer specialising in Apple products, said that it did exit surveys of 500 customers who purchased the sleek iMac at its stores.

The retailer, which has 10 stores, also said 13 per cent of the buyers were replacing a Windows-based personal computer.

ComputerWare said its poll was conducted by Market Metrics, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based market research firm, specialising in retail and distribution sales tracking.

Analysts are particularly interested in data on the mix of buyers of the iMac. Apple hopes to grow its dwindling share of the PC market with this re-entry into the consumer market by adding new users beyond the Macintosh faithful.

The iMac has already shattered some retail store sales records, selling out in its first weekend of sales at many stores, since it went on sale Saturday, August 15.

"iMac is attracting a lot of people to computing and the Internet," said Jeff Walker, vice president of retail sales at ComputerWare, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., in a statement.

But some consumers are not finding it that easy to get on the Internet with the iMac, according to a report on Ziff Davis's ZDNN, a technology news Web site (www.zdnet.com).

Apple's iMacs feature Internet access service provided by Earthlink Network Inc, which is integrated into the iMac's operating system, and offers "out of the box" Net access, which is widely featured in Apple's $100 million ad campaign.

According to ZDNN's Interactive Week Online, many new iMac owners across the US are having trouble getting their "Internet" Macs to connect to the Internet, if they are using an Internet service provider other than EarthLink.

Officials at Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple were not immediately available for comment.

Some online readers, who posted reactions to the Interactive Week story, agreed that it was difficult to log onto the Internet if you are not using the Earthlink service, while others said they had no problems getting online with a different Internet service provider.