Mac sales slump in Q1 as PC market faces 8th straight quarterly decline

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited April 2014
Apple's share of the U.S. computer hardware market slipped during the first quarter of 2014, with both IDC and Gartner seeing a year-over-year decline in worldwide PC shipments as consumers trend toward mobile.


Source: IDC


Unlike last quarter's stellar performance, which saw Apple's Mac buck the declining PC sales trend with a 30 percent year-to-year increase, the quarter ending in March proved to be more of a struggle for the company, according to market research firms IDC and Gartner.

According to IDC, Apple sold about 1.5 million Mac for the three month period ending in March, accounting for a 10.3 percent share of the U.S. market, down from 11 percent in 2013. Year-over-year growth dropped 7 percent, putting the Cupertino, Calif. company in fourth place behind HP, Dell and Lenovo. Gartner also pegged Apple's shipments at 1.5 million for the quarter, which amounted to a 10.8 percent share of the market in its breakdown. That number is down 3.8 percent year-to-year.

IDC found HP retained its lead with 25.6 percent of the market on 3.65 million units shipped, up 2.3 percent from last year's 24.9 percent share on 3.57 million shipments. Dell is quickly approaching the No. 1 spot and took a 24.5 percent marketshare for the first quarter. Shipments stood at 3.5 million units, up 13.4 percent. Chinese manufacturer Lenovo rocketed up the U.S. chart with a year-over-year gain of 21.2 percent on 1.54 million units shipped. The company leapfrogged Apple, which was ahead by over two points in the first quarter of 2013. Toshiba rounded out the top 5 with 7 percent drop in marketshare on 1.2 million shipped units.

Researchers at Gartner found similar results for the first quarter, with HP and Dell ahead of Apple, while Lenovo and Toshiba trailed in fourth and fifth place. HP was seen to hold one fourth of the market on 3.5 million units shipped, while Dell was right behind with a 23.8 percent share on 3.3 million units. Interestingly, Lenovo came in just behind Apple with 8.4 percent of the market on 1.46 million shipments, but exhibited the highest growth rate of 16.8 percent from last year. Toshiba was once again in fifth after shipping 1.2 million PCs to take 8.4 percent of the U.S. market.


Source: Gartner


"In terms of the major structural shift of the PC market, the U.S. market is ahead of other regions," said Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa. "The installed base of PCs started declining in 2013, while the worldwide installed base still grew. The U.S. PC market has been highly saturated with devices: 99 percent of households own at least one or more desktops or laptops, and more than half of them own both. While tablet penetration is expected to reach 50 percent in 2014, some consumer spending could return to PCs."

Depending on the source, the U.S. PC market either stabilized or grew over the first quarter compared to the same period in 2013. Gartner notes an uptick of 2.1 percent, while IDC's estimates show a 0.6 percent decline in domestic sales.

Worldwide shipments, however, continue to shrink as tablets and other "smart" devices take over. Gartner and IDC both estimated drops of 1.7 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively, with total shipments hovering between 73.4 and 76.6 million units.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    phone-ui-guyphone-ui-guy Posts: 1,019member

    I don't believe either source. The Mac Pro is going to play a good part or bad part in Apple's Mac numbers.

     

    Available to ship:

    4-6 weeks

     

    With it at 4-6 weeks of backlog, it will be interesting to see how well Apple is at getting them built and out. Is it just that slow to produce them or are there just so many people that are buying them, or a little of both... 

     

    It sounds like the sky is falling with a "Mac Sales Slump", but the Gartner numbers are only 60K less and IDC are 110K less. Since both of those are "guesses", it really doesn't matter anyway.

  • Reply 2 of 17
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,805member
    Apple hasn't announced anything yet?
  • Reply 3 of 17
    phone-ui-guyphone-ui-guy Posts: 1,019member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Danox View Post



    Apple hasn't announced anything yet?

     

    Q2 FY14 Earnings Release

    Apple plans to conduct a conference call to discuss financial results of its second fiscal quarter on Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.

  • Reply 4 of 17
    jmgregory1jmgregory1 Posts: 474member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Phone-UI-Guy View Post

     

     

    Q2 FY14 Earnings Release

    Apple plans to conduct a conference call to discuss financial results of its second fiscal quarter on Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.


    We should come back to this "news" release after Apple announces their numbers and see just how far off Gartner and IDC are.  Then watch how they both say that Apple is wrong about their numbers because they're not taking into account some mysterious losses that only they can track...

  • Reply 5 of 17
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member

    Profit dollars are more important than units shipped and sold.

  • Reply 6 of 17
    magman1979magman1979 Posts: 1,292member
    Once again an article written by clueless [B]anal-ysts[/B] on Wall Street that are just trying to manipulate the stock price with [B]FUD[/B].
  • Reply 7 of 17
    freshmakerfreshmaker Posts: 532member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jmgregory1 View Post

     

    We should come back to this "news" release after Apple announces their numbers and see just how far off Gartner and IDC are.  Then watch how they both say that Apple is wrong about their numbers because they're not taking into account some mysterious losses that only they can track...


    Yeah, I'm curious on this as well.  I'd be shocked if Apple slipped at all.  I know there was a lot of pent-up demand for the Mac Pro.  I'd have expected a nice little increase because of that.

  • Reply 8 of 17
    dgkanterdgkanter Posts: 10member
    Entitled as "sales", but that isn't what's been reported. Where are the number actually sold? The analysts may be ready to conclude on just the numbers shipped, but where does one find a comparison of those (purportedly) shipped and the net numbers actually sold. (I say "net" as there have been many products where large numbers had been sold, but then a large or--at least relatively large--number returned for refund.)
  • Reply 9 of 17
    Gardner and IDC refuse to count iPads (tablets) as computers, despite the fact that these are the reasons that PC's are in decline in the consumer market. They do include Windows tablets, however.

    So, in reality, with over 15 million iPads sold each quarter, Apple is the largest computer maker on the planet.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    So the top WinPC makers are increasing their unit sales but Apple is dropping theirs. That doesn't seem to be the trend I've noticed.
  • Reply 11 of 17
    mechanicmechanic Posts: 805member

    Gartner and IDC are always Negative on Apples numbers, there so far off in most cases its almost laughable.  IDC has always reported low numbers on apple in the past and both are getting ridiculous with how they account for there numbers.  IDC is the one that started counting white box androids in there mainstream android numbers and skewed there numbers so bad that there totally unreliable as a source for info.  

    IDC even says that its there mission to report there paying customers numbers in a favorable light to change market opinion.  So the translation there is that whoever pays them will get the numbers they want even if there wrong.

  • Reply 12 of 17
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Phone-UI-Guy View Post

     

    I don't believe either source. The Mac Pro is going to play a good part or bad part in Apple's Mac numbers.

     

    Available to ship:

    4-6 weeks

     

    With it at 4-6 weeks of backlog, it will be interesting to see how well Apple is at getting them built and out. Is it just that slow to produce them or are there just so many people that are buying them, or a little of both... 

     

    It sounds like the sky is falling with a "Mac Sales Slump", but the Gartner numbers are only 60K less and IDC are 110K less. Since both of those are "guesses", it really doesn't matter anyway.


     

    It's unlikely that the mac pro is going to provide really big numbers over the longer term. There's a pretty hard cap to the number of sales that kind of line can bring in. For it to be viable it merely has to justify itself in the sense that volume isn't drastically slipping over the longer term, and by bringing in some kind of return. Much of the viability of such a line is that it provides some capability not found in the other lines, but I highly doubt it's going to add a lot to their sales beyond the initial bump. Part of what you could be seeing is pent up demand due to little in the way of changes from 2010 until 2014 and the lack of new stock in Europe over the second half of 2013. The manufacturing capacity of the facility was probably designed for longer term predictions.

  • Reply 13 of 17
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    I don't believe either source. The Mac Pro is going to play a good part or bad part in Apple's Mac numbers.

    The Mac Pro is good for revenue and margins, not unit volume. A good turnout for the Mac Pro would be ~200k units but that's in amongst ~5 million Macs.

    Desktops are dropping, laptops are increasing. Apple is at over 75% laptops now on the Mac side. If they had a cheaper $799 laptop, that would boost their numbers a bit but it might not have much effect on profit.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    thepixeldocthepixeldoc Posts: 2,257member
    I'm curious when the statistic companies are going to start including iPad sales within the computer category, since it now has the best Microsoft Office implementation on any platform... you know... to get "real work done" (/s).

    So says Ed Bott. anyway and he should know as the penultimate MS Fanboy... http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-office-for-ipad-sets-the-gold-standard-for-tablet-productivity-7000027797/
  • Reply 15 of 17
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Profit dollars are more important than units shipped and sold.

    Exactly, and we all know Apple knows how to make a profit! :smokey:
  • Reply 16 of 17
    command_fcommand_f Posts: 421member

    Isn't this the other side of the coin that is last quarter's big growth?

     

    I thought last quarter's Mac growth figures were so good because, the year before (leading up to Christmas 2012), the new iMac* supply was severely constrained so sales were low, hence a comparison showed the same quarter in 2013 to be a big improvement because by then supply was normal (normal being better than constrained).

     

    So... in Q1 2013 there was pent-up demand for iMacs, which was satisfied resulting in bumper sales. Come a normal Q1 2012, the comparison shows it to be poor (normal not being as good as bumper).

     

    If that's a correct analysis, a 30% improvement last quarter added to a 7% fall this quarter sounds like a win to me

     

    *Mac Pro unit sales will always be much smaller than iMac because it appeals to a smaller market so a new Mac Pro won't have the same effect as a new iMac.

  • Reply 17 of 17
    brlawyerbrlawyer Posts: 828member
    Apple is dead. Or is it?
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