US PC shipments drop 6% as Apple posts 4% gain

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Estimated quarterly PC shipments show the overall U.S. market declined 5.7 percent year over year in the second quarter of 2012 while Apple grew 4.3 percent.

Apple was the only computer maker among the top five in the U.S. to post a year over year gain in the June quarter. All of the other top PC makers saw double-digit losses, with the exception of Dell, which fell 9.5 percent.

Apple's estimated 1.9 million Macs sold in the quarter was good for 12 percent of the market, putting it solidly in third place. Its 4.3 percent growth allowed Apple to increase its market share from 10.7 percent in the same three-month span a year ago.

In first place was HP, which saw its year-over-year shipments slide 12.7 percent, with 25 percent of the total market Gartner said. Dell came in second, controlling 21.7 percent of estimated PC shipments.

Behind Apple and in fourth place was Acer Group, which shipped an estimated 1.3 million PCs and took 8.5 percent of U.S. shipments. It saw a 14.1 percent drop from the same span in 2011.

Taking fifth in the second quarter of 2012 was Toshiba, which shipped an estimated 1.3 million PCs during the quarter and represented 8.2 percent of the market. Toshiba's year-over-year shipments fell 19.5 percent —?the biggest decline among the top five.

Without Apple's growth, the industry's losses in the second quarter of 2012 would have been even worse. Gartner's data is based on desktop and mobile PCs, but does not include what it classifies as "media tablets," which are devices like Apple's iPad.

"Weakness in the U.S. public market affected the professional segment despite the high PC procurement season in the second quarter," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "Both government and education institutions are encountering tight budget situations. Shipments to the public sector are expected to be lower than normal seasonality."

Gartner US
Source: Gartner


Apple, as usual, didn't crack the top five internationally, but the market as a whole performed slightly better around the world. Overall global PC shipments were down 0.1 percent for the June quarter, according to Gartner.

Worldwide, HP was again the No. 1 PC maker, with an estimated 13 million devices shipped and 14.9 percent of the market. Nipping at its heels was No. 2 Lenovo, with 12.8 million PCs shipped and strong 14.9 percent year over year growth.

Acer Group came in third, according to Gartner, with 9.6 million PCs shipped in the quarter, 11 percent of the market, and 3.6 percent year over year growth. Dell took fourth, falling 11.5 percent from the same span a year ago and accounting for 10.7 percent of PC shipments.

Posting the largest growth in worldwide PC shipments was Asus, which surged 38.6 percent year over year to reach 6.1 million units in the second quarter of 2012. Asus accounted for 7 percent of PCs shipped during the time period.

"In the second quarter of 2012, the PC market suffered through its seventh consecutive quarter of flat to single-digit growth,? Kitagawa said. "Uncertainties in the economy in various regions, as well as consumer?s low interest in PC purchases, were some of the key influencers of slow PC shipment growth. Despite the high expectations for the thin and light notebook segment, Ultrabooks, shipment volume was small and little impact on overall shipment growth."

Gartner Worldwide
Source: Gartner


IDC results more conservative

Coming on the heels of Gartner's estimates, IDC has published its own take on both the U.S. and worldwide PC market, seeing little change barring slightly less conservative findings for certain OEMs.

IDC's worldwide PC numbers are in line with Gartner's, finding a negative growth of 0.1 percent lead by HP and Lenovo which shipped 13.4 million units and 12.8 million units, respectively. The firm estimates that Dell ranked third with 9.6 million units shipped and was followed closely by Acer's 9 million units. Both firms are in agreement with numbers for ASUS which shipped a total of 6.1 million units, according to IDC.

Of the top five global OEMs only Lenovo and Acer were able to show a growth in marketshare, with the latter only managing to eke out a 0.5 percent increase. The ThinkPad maker exhibited the strongest growth with a 25.2 percent bump, bringing the company's share of the market to within only 0.6 points of leader HP's 15.5 percent which was down 12.3 percent from the second quarter of 2011. Despite dropping 11.5 percent of the market Dell managed to cling on to the number three spot with 11.1 percent of the market.

IDC U.S.
Source: IDC


HP's losses carried over to the lucrative U.S. market as the computer giant's share contracted 12 percent and now hovers slightly above one quarter of the market. Number two Dell was also hit with a loss and posted a negative 9.2 percent growth rate from the year ago period to finish the second quarter at 22.5 percent.

Unlike Gartner's numbers, IDC found that Apple's slice of the American market shrunk 1.1 points to end the quarter at 11.4 percent and was followed by the only company to gain marketshare Lenovo which upped its take to 8 percent, a 6.1 percent increase from 2011. Rounding out the top five was Acer's 14.3 point drop, the biggest loser of the quarter according to IDC, as the manufacturer ended up with 7.9 percent of the U.S. market.

Overall, the U.S. market experienced a whopping 10.6 percent contraction from last year which IDC attributes to economic turmoil and users waiting for Microsoft to launch Windows 8 in October.

IDC Worldwide
Source: IDC


"In this context, consumers are delaying purchases, and vendors and retailers are slowing down their PC activities to clear existing inventories. The situation is exacerbated by consumer notebook saturation, a slowing replacement cycle in the commercial sector, and the big macro-economic and political events affecting confidence and spending," said IDC Personal Computing research director David Daoud. "We don't expect PCs using Windows 8 to boost growth significantly until the fourth quarter, which leads to a conservative outlook for the third quarter."

IDC believes that Ultrabooks have not yet contributed to an expected rise in PC shipments due to high prices and the upcoming launch of Windows 8. Another factor in the flatlining market are distributor sell-outs as resellers are reticent to overstock shelves ahead of new product launches coming later this year.

"These latest results validate IDC's expectation that the second quarter would be a transition period where both economic factors and anticipation for new products in the second half of the year would result in relatively low PC shipment growth," said senior researcher at the IDC's Worldwide PC Tracker, Jay Chou. "The announcement of a Windows 8 launch date, as well as broader communication of new features in the OS, are key steps that would help to address uncertainty about new product availability and help consumers and channels plan their purchases."
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 62
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    And yet Mac sales are down, or so they say. PCs must really be suffering, then.
  • Reply 2 of 62
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    And yet Mac sales are down, or so they say. PCs must really be suffering, then.

    This is why I think MS is so keen on making the surface. Not because they want to be a PC HW marker, but because they finally realize that Apple's iPad is a huge threat to Windows.
  • Reply 3 of 62
    ddawson100ddawson100 Posts: 513member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post



    Apple's estimated 1.9 million Macs sold in the quarter was good for 12 percent of the market


     


    Nice job indeed. Even if it's not explosive growth it's still very impressive.

  • Reply 4 of 62
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member
    BRILLIANT decision by Apple to make Retina Macs.
  • Reply 5 of 62
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post





    This is why I think MS is so keen on making the surface. Not because they want to be a PC HW marker, but because they finally realize that Apple's iPad is a huge threat to Windows.




    +1 on this.  So many people though have iPads that the name could almost be a generic.  Microsoft had literally decades to get a decent tablet out there and could never do it. Either way, at least Microsoft imho deserves a shot at dethroning the iPad than the p.o.s. Android tablets.  At least Microsoft actually developed their own stuff.

  • Reply 6 of 62
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    ddawson100 wrote: »
    Nice job indeed. Even if it's not explosive growth it's still very impressive.

    It's amazing that a company that doesn't sell cheap machines can have 12% of the unit share for a market. I wonder how much their profit share is.
    165

    I also wonder what vendor(s) are raising so fast in the Other category.
  • Reply 7 of 62
    softekysofteky Posts: 136member
    "[B]Apple posts 4% gain[/B]"

    Did Apple actually post a gain or, as the article states, is this an estimate by Gartner?

    Surely if Apple posted a gain as the title states, it would not be an estimate, nor, by the way would it be until the end of this month.

    I guess "Gartner estimates Apple will post a 4% gain" does not work as well in the title.
  • Reply 8 of 62
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    sflocal wrote: »
    iEither way, at least Microsoft imho deserves a shot at dethroning the iPad than the p.o.s. Android tablets.  At least Microsoft actually developed their own stuff.

    I think they would have had a chance if they would have called the device with the Metro UI and requiring all new apps to be vetted by their app store to be called Metro OS. There is literally no more windowing in that UI. I also think they've doubly and triply messed up by announcing an ARM and X86 version and then not having them ready for many month from now with no price point or sale date. At least when Google announced the Nexus 7 it had a price, a fairly specific ship date that was close, and you could pre-order immediately.

    (Need analogy to describe having someone brilliant but then destroying it by doing other of plenty stupid things.)
  • Reply 9 of 62
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    softeky wrote: »
    "Apple posts 4% gain"
    Did Apple actually post a gain or, as the article states, is this an estimate by Gartner?
    Surely if Apple posted a gain as the title states, it would not be an estimate, nor, by the way would it be until the end of this month.
    I guess "Gartner estimates Apple will post a 4% gain" does not work as well in the title.

    It's an estimate from Gartner (whose accuracy has never been that good). Apple won't release quarterly numbers until later this month.
  • Reply 10 of 62
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    This is why I think MS is so keen on making the surface. Not because they want to be a PC HW marker, but because they finally realize that Apple's iPad is a huge threat to Windows.

    It will be interesting to see what the argument becomes as to whether a tablet is a PC in the coming months after Surface is released.
  • Reply 11 of 62
    markbyrnmarkbyrn Posts: 661member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    This is why I think MS is so keen on making the surface. Not because they want to be a PC HW marker, but because they finally realize that Apple's iPad is a huge threat to Windows.

    Perhaps although when Microsoft has to face the reality of actually selling this overhyped Surface gimmick, the impact on PC sales will be utterly negligible. That's just my educated guess of course but when you have a product with no price, no ship date, a new OS that isn't lighting the world up, and a restricted demo that was more about marketing than substance, one would be foolish to put their hopes on this Unicorn.

    303
  • Reply 12 of 62
    theothergeofftheothergeoff Posts: 2,081member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post



    Estimated quarterly PC shipments show the overall U.S. market declined 5.7 percent year over year in the second quarter of 2012 while Apple grew 4.3 percent.




    IDC U.S.





     


    Did they change the graphics from Gartner to IDC from when they posted the story till now when I read this?  SolipsismX shows a  different table, 


     


    I don't see a 4% growth in this table.

  • Reply 13 of 62
    aaarrrggghaaarrrgggh Posts: 1,609member
    Geoff beat me to it.
  • Reply 14 of 62
    cvaldes1831cvaldes1831 Posts: 1,832member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post

    I also wonder what vendor(s) are raising so fast in the Other category.


     


    According to Gartner, Lenovo and Asus are the primary contributors to the Other category.


     


    More revealing is the fact that the non-Apple PC business is actually doing worse.


     


    Here are the numbers if you subtract Apple's sales numbers from the rest of the industry.



    2Q12 (ex-Apple): 13997

    2Q11 (ex-Apple): 15047


     


    That's a -6.96% decline for non-Apple PC manufacturers. The -5.7% PC industry decline is being propped up by Apple.


     


    Gartner is not including media tablet sales in these figures. These numbers include desktop PCs, notebook PCs, and mini-notebooks (like netbooks).

  • Reply 15 of 62

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post



    And yet Mac sales are down, or so they say. PCs must really be suffering, then.


    Lenovo seems to be kicking ass.  

  • Reply 16 of 62
    mike fixmike fix Posts: 270member


    They would have shipped a bunch of Mac Pros if there were updated.

  • Reply 17 of 62

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheOtherGeoff View Post


    Did they change the graphics from Gartner to IDC from when they posted the story till now when I read this?  SolipsismX shows a  different table, 


     


    I don't see a 4% growth in this table.



     


     


    Yeah - I don't understand.  I see a 1.1% decline.  Where did Soli's table come from?  How does this table square with the headline and the story?

  • Reply 18 of 62
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    mike fix wrote: »
    They would have shipped a bunch of Mac Pros if there were updated.

    {Citation needed}
  • Reply 19 of 62
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Mike Fix View Post


    They would have shipped a bunch of Mac Pros if there were updated.



     


    The entire potential Mac Pro userbase would not make a blip on any sales chart. Stop pretending as if it has any relevence in the big picture when it comes to sales/profit/revenue/success. It doesn't. Apple will continue to make the Mac Pro because there is a professional niche that use it, but its a relatively small niche, much smaller than any of their other products, and getting smaller every day.  Even with a massive update, sales will not make a dent in the big picture. Its statistically irrelevant, and probably can be defined as a rounding error. Not many people are in the market for a massive desktop tower, no matter how good it is, and that won't change no matter how much they improve it. Its an outdated concept that only serves VERY specific professional needs. 

  • Reply 20 of 62
    cvaldes1831cvaldes1831 Posts: 1,832member


    AppleInsider screwed up the graphic.


     


    The article describes the Gartner analysis (and the original graphic that SolipsismX quoted reflect those numbers), but they have bungled their updated graphic and replaced it with numbers from the IDC report.


     


    Amusingly, there is a typo in the updated graphic.


     


    This is an AppleInsider F-A-I-L.

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