A financial analyst with Morgan Stanley raised her forecast for Mac sales in the second quarter, saying Apple is increasing shipments of its computers at a higher rate than the PC industry as a whole.

The report from analyst Kathryn Huberty said that even before Apple refreshed its MacBook Pros last month, the company increased Mac shipments 25% month-to-month in May, compared to just 1% growth for the total PC market, Fortune magazine reported Wednesday.

With new MacBooks hitting the market and market data showing steady growth in Mac shipments over the last few week, Huberty raised her sales forecast in the second calendar quarter, which is Apple's fiscal third quarter, to 2.5 million units from 2.4 million, Fortune said. The revised projection represents a quarter-to-quarter growth rate of 12%.

In April, Apple reported a 3% drop in Mac sales for the calendar quarter ended in March, compared with the same period in 2008. The decline was in line with overall PC sales in the United States in the quarter, which fell 3.1%, according to IDC.

Since then, Apple has gotten more aggressive with pricing, while staying within the high-end of the PC market. The company lopped up to $300 off the price of the refreshed MacBook Pro line introduced last month.

At the same time, Apple cut prices on previous generations of Macs by as much as $850.

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