That’s the conclusion of an NPD survey that suggests that Mac households favor multiplatform environments, buy more gadgets and have the higher income needed to afford them.

“While Apple owners tend to own more computers and more electronics devices, there is also a high correlation among Apple owners and more affluent consumer households,” said NPD’s Stephen Baker. “The average Apple household owns 48 CE devices whereas the average computer household owns about 24.” (See chart below; click to enlarge.)

Not a surprise, really. Presumably, if you can afford to purchase a $1,199 laptop or desktop, you can afford to buy an assortment of other gadgetry to go along with it. A couple of other data points worth noting:

• 66 percent of Mac households own three computers or more, compared to 29 percent of Windows households.
• 63 percent of Mac households own an iPod. The same can be said of only 36 percent of all computer-using households.

Sadly, NPD’s survey didn’t explore how PCs are used in Mac households or how they ended up there in the first place. Are they leftovers from a PC-to-Mac switch? Are they corporate laptops? Entry-level machines for the kids? High-end gaming machines?

And it continues to sell well. While Leopard and Tiger sales declined more than 60 percent after their first week at market, sales of Snow Leopard have only declined 25 percent in the two weeks it’s been available.

“Even though some considered Snow Leopard to be less feature-focused than the releases of Leopard or Tiger, the ease of upgrading to Snow Leopard and the affordable pricing made it a win-win for Apple computer owners–thus helping to push sales to record numbers,” NPD’s Stephen Baker said in an announcement.

“With pricing reduced by more than $100 for both the single-user and five-user pack versus Leopard pricing,” Baker added, “Apple has clearly demonstrated that aggressive pricing policies in this economic environment generate an outstanding consumer response.”

In a research note issued earlier this summer, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimated that Apple (AAPL) would sell about five million copies of Snow Leopard in the quarter in which it was launched. And while that number might have seemed optimistic at the time, it’s looking increasingly more reasonable. Leopard, as you might recall, sold more than two million copies its first weekend at market. If Snow Leopard is selling twice as quickly, Apple should have no trouble hitting Munster’s target and perhaps even passing it.

According to new stats from NPD Group, Apple now claims 91 percent of the U.S. retail market for personal computers costing more than $1,000. Nine out of 10 dollars spent on such machines in June went to Cupertino.

Now, granted, Cupertino only sells three Macs priced below $1,000 (the 13-inch MacBook and both versions of the Mac Mini), and Apple’s (AAPL) rivals’ offerings typically price out in the $690 -to-$703 range. Still, that 91 percent metric is impressive.

As Joe Wilcox over at Betanews puts it, “A (higher pricing) doesn’t necessarily lead to B (greater sales). All major Windows OEMs sell PCs in the premium category, too. Apple’s charging more isn’t necessarily recipe for people paying more for Macs, or their capturing big revenue share.”

That said, as NPD analyst Stephen Baker points out, Windows product average selling prices have been falling pretty rapidly over time, especially at retail, so it was inevitable that Apple’s share of the high-end market would rise, since the company hasn’t really altered its pricing philosophy.

It would seem then that the so-called “fastest-growing segment of the PC market” is also the most misunderstood. For what is a netbook but an underpowered laptop or a giant Gallagher-sized smartphone? Consumers are intrigued by the netbook’s low prices, but they don’t understand its value proposition.

“We need to make sure consumers are buying a PC intended for what they plan to do with it,” said NPD’s Stephen Baker. “There is a serious risk of cannibalization in the notebook market that could cause a real threat to netbooks’ success. Retailers and manufacturers can’t put too much emphasis on PC-like capabilities and general features that could convince consumers that a netbook is a replacement for a notebook. Instead, they should be marketing mobility, portability, and the need for a companion PC to ensure consumers know what they are buying and are more satisfied with their purchases.”

Seems the econalypse and the absence of a “must-have product” really played havoc with spending during our annual consumer binge. Said Baker, “Not only was there not a really hot product, not only did the economy tell people that they shouldn’t buy stuff, but the stuff I have [is] more than good enough in most cases.”