Mac shipments collapse 40% year over year on declining demand
IDC claims that an end to COVID-driven demand means first-quarter 2023 sales of all computers are dramatically lower than a year ago, but Apple has reportedly been hit the hardest.
Having previously said Apple weathered the holiday season while no other computer manufacturer did, IDC now says that year over year, Mac sales are down 40% in the first quarter. Global PC shipments, including Macs, were down 29% to 56.9 million devices.
"Though channel inventory has depleted in the last few months, it's still well above the healthy four to six week range," Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, wrote. "Even with heavy discounting, channels and PC makers can expect elevated inventory to persist into the middle of the year and potentially into the third quarter."
The market leader, Lenovo, shipped 12.7 million devices in Q1 2023, compared to 18.3 million in Q1 2022, for a 30.3% drop. Second place firm HP saw the smallest drop, but its shipping 12 million devices was still 24.2% down.
Dell was third with a 31% decline meaning it shipped 9.5 million PCs compared to 13.7 million the year before.
Apple was fourth, with 4.1 million Macs shipped in Q1 2023 compared to 6.9 million for the same period in 2022. This is apparently despite the release of new MacBook Pro models in January 2023.
Source: IDC
IDC blames the decline on "weak demand, excess inventory, and a worsening macroeconomic climate," following "a least a temporary return to pre-COVID patterns."
The firm predicts, however, that computer sales may recover at some point in 2023, depending on the recovery.
"By 2024, an aging installed base will start coming up for refresh," Linn Huang, research vice president, Devices and Displays at IDC, wrote. "If the economy is trending upwards by then, we expect significant market upside as consumers look to refresh, schools seek to replace worn down Chromebooks, and businesses move to Windows 11."
"If recession in key markets drags on into next year, recovery could be a slog," concluded Huang.
Apple has not reported Mac sales volumes in very close to a decade. IDC's report is based on what it describes as "detailed market data" that is compiled "in over 90 countries."
Read on AppleInsider
Having previously said Apple weathered the holiday season while no other computer manufacturer did, IDC now says that year over year, Mac sales are down 40% in the first quarter. Global PC shipments, including Macs, were down 29% to 56.9 million devices.
"Though channel inventory has depleted in the last few months, it's still well above the healthy four to six week range," Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, wrote. "Even with heavy discounting, channels and PC makers can expect elevated inventory to persist into the middle of the year and potentially into the third quarter."
The market leader, Lenovo, shipped 12.7 million devices in Q1 2023, compared to 18.3 million in Q1 2022, for a 30.3% drop. Second place firm HP saw the smallest drop, but its shipping 12 million devices was still 24.2% down.
Dell was third with a 31% decline meaning it shipped 9.5 million PCs compared to 13.7 million the year before.
Apple was fourth, with 4.1 million Macs shipped in Q1 2023 compared to 6.9 million for the same period in 2022. This is apparently despite the release of new MacBook Pro models in January 2023.
Source: IDC
IDC blames the decline on "weak demand, excess inventory, and a worsening macroeconomic climate," following "a least a temporary return to pre-COVID patterns."
The firm predicts, however, that computer sales may recover at some point in 2023, depending on the recovery.
"By 2024, an aging installed base will start coming up for refresh," Linn Huang, research vice president, Devices and Displays at IDC, wrote. "If the economy is trending upwards by then, we expect significant market upside as consumers look to refresh, schools seek to replace worn down Chromebooks, and businesses move to Windows 11."
"If recession in key markets drags on into next year, recovery could be a slog," concluded Huang.
Apple has not reported Mac sales volumes in very close to a decade. IDC's report is based on what it describes as "detailed market data" that is compiled "in over 90 countries."
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
- challenged privacy representation / trust (mysk report + class actions)
- increasing online / cloud dependence
- gpu speed concerns
- increasing ads
- inflexible ram / storage
- uncompetitive ram/storage cost
- increased churn (os/hardware) shortening life cycle / orphaning
- increasing churn overhead (every bloody year)
- increasing churn seeming lagging or abandoning bug fixes
- astonishingly poor migration experience still non functional
- debatably poor repairability
- subscription trend vs persistent licensing
- dongle churn
- partial feature support (aka touchbar, intel macos lag)
sell, sell, sell...
... has 'better' for profit replaced profit for 'best' (for the customer)...?
...and on it goes...
Peak Apple...?
However, you are confidently claiming (with literally no source data) that the projection is utter nonsense.
In reality that is an even wilder claim.
What is clear is that disposable income in certain markets has shrivelled down to nothing and where some margin still exists, people are hanging onto to those funds just in case things get even worse for them.
There are numerous factors that play into sales of Apple devices, particularly the Mac, but the biggest one is the economy.
Apple’s been flying high on good Mac sales due to a variety of reasons—the pandemic, the Apple silicon transition, etc.—and now everything is crashing back down to earth. The workforce has shifted away from remote work, the Apple silicon transition has been very successful but is now settling into a less exciting pattern of refreshes, and above all else, the global economy sucks. Did people really expect Apple to continue to move ridiculous numbers of Macs?
Give it rest, haters.
Tech analysts/financial analysts desperate as usual to lump Apple in with the riff-raff, Apple should buy the biggest low margin failing content/tech company out there, they’re doomed if they don’t lower their prices and sell product at half the price, and they should give it all away by becoming a non-vertical computer company,, etc. etc. etc.
https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS49755822
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-10-10-gartner-says-worldwide-pc-shipments-declined-19-percent-in-third-quarter-of-2022
https://canalys.com/newsroom/worldwide-pc-shipments-Q3-2022
In Q322, IDC said 10m Macs, Gartner said 5.7m, Canalys said 7.9m. Those numbers vary so much that they are meaningless and because Apple doesn't report the numbers, they go uncorrected.
Apple does report Mac revenue and they announced a YoY revenue drop in Q1 in their February earnings, down from $10.9b to $7.7b. Assuming the same ASP, that's a 30% drop in Mac unit sales. But the M1 sales were very high so it's natural that it would fall back closer to pre-M1 launch levels. The only things that can push back to those levels would be a significant performance jump with an M3 launch and a 15" Macbook Air, which would be later in the year.
Similarly in Q2-22, Apple reported record Mac revenues at $10.4b:
https://macdailynews.com/2022/04/28/apple-results-beat-street-with-all-time-quarterly-revenue-record-of-97-3-billion/
There's no reason to expect M2 sales to beat the M1 launch. Mac revenue in Q2 2020 (Intel) was $5.4b, then it's been record quarters in 2021 and 2022. I think a 30% YoY drop to ~$7b would be reasonable but they might have a further effect from increasing international Mac prices 10%, which make up half their shipments.
I think you’re right about the M2 however, however Apple has shot themselves in the foot by not offering the entire range of Mac computers in a timely manner. And it’s always been the total design of Mac hardware plus OS software that has carried the day not necessarily having the absolute fastest GPU, I would have bought a 27 inch iMac M1 Computer, or a Mac Pro based M1. It was the form factor that was important not the absolute speed of the GPU.