Mac sales return to growth in Q1 amid continued PC market decline
Following a contraction over the holiday shopping season, Apple's Mac shipments returned to growth during the first quarter of 2018 amid a deteriorating PC market, according to fresh statistics from market research firm Gartner.
Gartner estimates Apple shipped nearly 4.3 million units over the three-month period ending in March, up 1.5 percent year-over-year. The fourth-place performance gave the company a 6.9 percent share of the market, a figure last seen in the third quarter of 2017.
Mac experienced a downturn last quarter when Apple reported a 4.8 percent drop in sales compared to the year prior.
Mirroring recent quarters, HP finished in the top spot with 12.9 million units shipped to take a 20.8 percent share of the market, up 2.8 percent year-over year. Lenovo followed close behind with 12.4 million units shipped and 20 percent of the market. Dell was the quarter's biggest positive mover, ending the period up 6.5 percent with a 16 percent share on 9.9 million units shipped.
Asus and Acer again saw their slice of the pie diminished with a respective 3.9 million and 3.8 million units shipped, good for 6.3 percent and 6.2 percent of the market. For Asus, the 12.5 percent year-over-year decline dropped the firm into fifth place behind Apple, while Acer finished in sixth with an 8.6 percent decline in growth.
Though not as poor a showing as recent quarters, global PC shipments continued a downward spiral, with Gartner estimating a 1.4 percent contraction from the same time last year.
Apple put in a similar showing in the U.S., a region that accounted for 1.5 million shipments, up 0.5 percent year-over-year. Mac captured 12.6 percent of the market during the first quarter, according to Gartner. The performance landed Apple in fourth place behind Dell, HP and Lenovo. Of the top three, only Dell exhibited growth of 7.6 percent during quarter one, while HP and Lenovo shipments both dipped 4.8 percent over the same period.
Research firm IDC released its own set of numbers on Wednesday, putting Apple in fifth place worldwide with 6.6 percent of the market on 4 million shipments, down 4.8 percent year-over-year.
IDC estimates HP finished in first place globally with 13.7 million units shipped, up 4.3 percent to net a 22.6 percent marketshare. Second place Lenovo saw zero growth with 12.3 million shipments, but managed to capture 20.4 percent of the market. Dell rounded out the top three with 10.2 million units shipped, good for 16.9 percent of the market, while Acer shipments dropped 7.7 percent to 4.1 million units.
Gartner estimates Apple shipped nearly 4.3 million units over the three-month period ending in March, up 1.5 percent year-over-year. The fourth-place performance gave the company a 6.9 percent share of the market, a figure last seen in the third quarter of 2017.
Mac experienced a downturn last quarter when Apple reported a 4.8 percent drop in sales compared to the year prior.
Mirroring recent quarters, HP finished in the top spot with 12.9 million units shipped to take a 20.8 percent share of the market, up 2.8 percent year-over year. Lenovo followed close behind with 12.4 million units shipped and 20 percent of the market. Dell was the quarter's biggest positive mover, ending the period up 6.5 percent with a 16 percent share on 9.9 million units shipped.
Asus and Acer again saw their slice of the pie diminished with a respective 3.9 million and 3.8 million units shipped, good for 6.3 percent and 6.2 percent of the market. For Asus, the 12.5 percent year-over-year decline dropped the firm into fifth place behind Apple, while Acer finished in sixth with an 8.6 percent decline in growth.
Though not as poor a showing as recent quarters, global PC shipments continued a downward spiral, with Gartner estimating a 1.4 percent contraction from the same time last year.
Apple put in a similar showing in the U.S., a region that accounted for 1.5 million shipments, up 0.5 percent year-over-year. Mac captured 12.6 percent of the market during the first quarter, according to Gartner. The performance landed Apple in fourth place behind Dell, HP and Lenovo. Of the top three, only Dell exhibited growth of 7.6 percent during quarter one, while HP and Lenovo shipments both dipped 4.8 percent over the same period.
Research firm IDC released its own set of numbers on Wednesday, putting Apple in fifth place worldwide with 6.6 percent of the market on 4 million shipments, down 4.8 percent year-over-year.
IDC estimates HP finished in first place globally with 13.7 million units shipped, up 4.3 percent to net a 22.6 percent marketshare. Second place Lenovo saw zero growth with 12.3 million shipments, but managed to capture 20.4 percent of the market. Dell rounded out the top three with 10.2 million units shipped, good for 16.9 percent of the market, while Acer shipments dropped 7.7 percent to 4.1 million units.
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IDC Numbers show Apple losing ground to HP
Apple’s worldwide Mac sales were 4 million in the March quarter, down 21.9% from the prior quarter and declining 4.8% yr/yr. Apple had a 6.6% market share in 1Q18 compared to a 7% market share a year ago. This compares to our 3.987 million total Mac estimate in F2Q18. This quarter marked Apple’s lowest ship share since 2Q14. We believe that Apple continues to face strong competition from other premium PC providers such as HP Inc.
My take: True to form, Apple is willing to lose market share to keep its average selling price constant or growing.
https://www.ped30.com/2018/04/11/analyst-idc-numbers-show-apple-losing-ground-to-hp/
Apple: $48.35 B
HP: $2.53 B
Edit:
Added link:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/hp-grows-both-pc-and-printing-revenue-in-q4/
Also would note, from above, that Mac's are somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of Apple's revenue. Two thirds of HP's is PC's, the balance is Printers/imaging.
Apple will never compete on price. It never has and never will and if Apple ever decided to do so, it will be the death of Apple as we know it today. You can't make the products and services Apple does and have a low MSRP. It just doesn't work that way. I don't see Apple being more successful by doing everything cheaply and creating $399 Macs with cheap parts, or $400 iPhones (bought outright). Nobody that I can think of puts forth the amount of effort into each and every product and service as Apple. Maybe some don't see the value and thats fine. Some also don't see the value in buying a BMW when all they care about is getting from point A to point B and back. There are folks who all they care about is being able to turn a computer on, open the browser of their choice and do what they need to do. For those people, Apple probably isn't the best decision. Apple doesn't really make products for those kinds of people. I don't really think its ever been Apple's goal to sell the most of something, even in Steve's era. Apple's goal is to sell the best product they can sell and possibly change someone's life in the process. You can't do that and make cheap products....you can't have it both ways.
So I don't really think its a fair assessment to just have a point blank marketshare of computers. Its like comparing Ford sales to Mercedes Benz sales and then complaining because Ford is kicking Mercedes' ass in sales. This is just simply something that some analysts don't get. I'm fairly certain it doesn't keep anyone at Apple awake at night that HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc sells more computers than Apple. They always have...nothing Apple does is going to change that.
As for laptops, take a look at something like HP's new ZBook Studio x360. It's a mobile workstation for creators and completely outclasses a MacBook Pro's hardware.
4K IPS display / 600 nit / 100% Adobe RGB / 1 billion colors
6 core Xeon-2186M
32 GB DDR4 ECC
Quadro P1000 4 GB GDDR5
4 TB PCIe SSD
Wacom AES (4096 levels of pressure / tilt)
2x USB-C Thunderbolt 3 (Titan Ridge)
5-in-1 SD card slot / 2x USB-A / HDMI 2.0
Fingerprint sensor / IR camera
Point being, none of those workstations are your everyday Fords.
They get a spike in sales of their reports to investors trying to buy or sell stock before the respective companies’ report quarterly financials, and the good metrics are in their reports?
If Apple would release an updated Mac mini that is not a sealed shut box, I would order/buy it today.
Mac sales will get better when Apple gets serious about something other than iMacs and Laptops.
Some of us want a headless Mac that has decent specs, can be upgraded and does not cost a King's Ransom.
I work in Medical Imaging and we require patients to turn their phones off before entering exam rooms and in the case of MRI- leave them outside the exam room. That means we get to see what everybody is using.
Apart from Cell Phones, Apple has pretty much abandoned the scientific, technical and creative markets. The way they handled Final Cut, Logic, Aperture and such did not inspire confidence in people who need to know what the roadmap looks like. The abandonment of the server Market and the Trashcan (not) Mac Pro- 2013 design in 2018- does not help, either.
The sad truth of OSes is that the world runs on LINUX servers and Windows clients.
Mac sales return to growth in Q1 amid continued PC market decline
I thought the Quarter ending March was Apple's Q2, not Q1? I guess they are talking about fiscal Q1 as comparison point for all the companies listed.OK, so what happened about the fact that Apple's Q1, which was "low" (YoY) and from which Apple's Mac sales have now "returned to growth" (YoY), was a week shorter than it's 2017 Q1?
There was a bit of discussion about that on Apple-centric sites right after the "disappointing" unit results last quarter, but not much since, and certainly not on WallStreet it seems. Apple had a week less of sales during Q1, which is arguably why it went down in unit sales YoY. Especially since the iPhone X came online later and supply was constrained. That week could have made all the difference.
How does this even work, that you get a quarter shorter by a whole week than the year previous? How often does it happen? What if they split that week between last quarter and this quarter, so that Q1 had 3.5 days extra (and thus several million more iPhone unit sales), and last Quarter had 3.5 days less?
A headless, non-soldered/sealed in Mac with decent specs that allowed users to upgrade certain components would be a roaring success IMO.
The problem is that that would take away from iMac sales which probably have higher margins and I think that is the sole reason Apple doesn't actually have one.
Some will argue that people want the AIO form factor but if that's the case they should test the waters with a headless Mac that isn't a low-end Mini. After all, if the people who defend Apple's every move believe the AIO is a success precisely because it's an AIO and people truly want them, Apple could only gain with a headless Mac.
Of course, if such a Mac ever existed and iMac sales suffered, it would be food for thought for those who claimed otherwise.
As for laptops, I do not want the Touchbar nor TouchID pairing on a 15" if it adds 300 dollars to the cost. I'm not obsessed with thin and mega expensive either and want to add memory when I want (not when Apple wants or at Apple prices).
Give me a thicker - 'modular' - now that the term is back in vogue, laptop with a bigger, non-glued in battery, upgradeable RAM/SSD, ethernet and USB-A and C ports.
Just to be clear, thicker doesn't mean a suitcase and it doesn't mean they shouldn't have their ultra thins out there either.
For the first time in my life I am seriously considering a Windows 10 laptop if Apple doesn't release something to my liking (yes, my liking as I am the customer and shouldn't have to bend over for Apple).
Of course, there is no reason for Apple to change anything if they are happy with the status quo and current sales. Going into the Christmas sales quarter with exactly the same Macs as in the 2015 Christmas season sent me a clear message. Mobile is where the money is at so like it or lump it.
I'm lumping it but judge Apple with the pudding. There is little to inspire me in that aspect.
Techmeme does rewrite headlines to be more reflective of article content, but I think it is only for the most extreme cases.
The data basically says the PC market is flat from last year, but that is the most boring piece of information ever. Something exciting needs to be said.
IDC: PCs declined but we thought they’d decline more so good news! Gartner: PCs declined 1.4%. Uh, 1.4%? Gartner’s measurement error is probably 10% and who knows how they categorize PCs. MacRumors: Macs hold steady but PCs declined. The market was flat and saying a 1% to 2% difference is significant is like when weighing yourself, you take off your underwear to maximize that hoped for weight loss.
Headline abuse award goes to Bogdan Papa at Softpedia.
pc-specialist-vortex-spyro-1800-gaming-pc-10164368-pdt.html
https://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pcs/desktop-pcs/alienware-area-51-r3-gaming-pc-silver-10169121-pdt.html
Attractive towers at two different price points. Modern specs. 8 cores. Nvidia GPUs. Two models under £2k.
Threader ripper. £4,800. For the 'workstation' in you.
How hard is it? These companies are still in business, so they must be making money out of towers. The question is, is it ever enough for Apple (who also infamously charged a pretty penny for iPhone socks...and yes, that was under Steve Jobs. Guess we can't blame Cook for that one...)
It's not like Apple DIDN'T get it right with the old G3 and refined with the G5 Bauhaus (Steve Jobs nailed it with the G3 Blue and White Tower intro'. Brilliant access. Industry standard parts with kick ass GPUs so that you can keep it upto date every six months instead of being out of date with premium niche...) (We can blame Apple's Cook for being asleep at the 'Tower' wheel for 6 years since the 'Can' got launched and quietly 'canned' and declared the iPad was all the computer you ever needed... Premature specification indeed...) Apple's neglect of the tower started long before the Can though. The Intel tower got a luke warm spec bump and was already out of date for no discernible reason despite having access to industry standard parts with Intel.
Apple wants jacked up entry points with reaming upsell (their ram prices are infamous) and several 100% mark ups on components you upgrade only with them and no one else.
The tech' press don't call them out on it. If they do, not nearly enough. Are they keeping Apple sweet for review units?
This is what happens when you have a nickel and dimer keeping shareholders rather than customers happy.
Lemon Bon Bon.
The car analogies are also very tiresome.
Remember when M$ completely embarrassed Apple with the launch of the visionary Studio desktop? I'm no M$ fan, believe me. But I sat there in shock. Why hadn't Apple iMac Pro'd the iMac like this? They already had the luxor lamp years ago. It was the sheer refinement of the Studio with a 'wheel' and a pen...it all worked together (at least in the demos...) Apple released a laptop with a steep price hike and a tiny touch strip...which made you break your harmony with looking at the screen as opposed to being immersed in it.
HP's Towers etc have been embarrassing Apple for some time...since they decided they weren't getting out of the PC game but rather they'd out design Apple and play them at their own game. They even have a 'NeXT cube! Go see their website. Some great designs on there.
Remember when Apple launched the Studio displays at 30 inch and it was industry leading? For a great price? Dell have an 8K monitor now for 3.5k. That's only a grand or so more than Apple's original 22 inch LCD monitor... Why isn't Apple leading in this and giving us a studio range with Dell busting prices and boasting it takes two Nvidias GPUs to run it?
Instead we got passed over to crap 5k plastic LG displays.
A lot of it seems so obvious. But when you have 22 million in shares that you sell off and swim with your hands over your ears...your products begin to sink. Or is that stink?
If they don't spec bump in 3-6 years...and still charge the same reaming price...
Lemon Bon Bon.