Apple's Mac shipments decline in U.S. as PC market slows
Preliminary PC shipment estimates released on Thursday from market research firm IDC show an overall contraction of 4.5 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2012, and Apple followed suit with a 0.2 percent negative growth rate.
Unit shipments are in thousands. | Source: IDC
According to IDC's quarterly estimates, Apple shipped roughly 2.03 million Macs over the three-month period ending in December, just 3,000 units shy of last year's performance. Despite showing negative growth in quarter four, Apple managed to gain market share over other PC vendors like Toshiba, which took huge hits over the same period.
It can be speculated that rollout issues with the newly redesigned iMac are to blame for Apple's slip into the red, with the all-in-ones still in short supply more than a month after being launched at the end of November.
Overall, U.S. PC shipments fell to 17.75 million from 18.6 million a year ago, representing a negative growth rate of 4.5 percent.
"Although the third quarter was focused on the clearing of Windows 7 inventory, preliminary research indicates the clearance did not significantly boost the uptake of Windows 8 systems in Q4," said Jay Chou, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. "Lost in the shuffle to promote a touch-centric PC, vendors have not forcefully stressed other features that promote a more secure, reliable and efficient user experience. As Windows 8 matures, and other corresponding variables such as Ultrabook pricing continue to drop, hopefully the PC market can see a reset in both messaging and demand in 2013."
Once again, HP held on to the top spot, bucking the downward trend to gain 12.4 percent for the quarter on shipments nearing 4.8 million units. The company now accounts for 27 percent of the U.S. market. In the No. 2 spot was Dell, which suffered a hefty 16.6 percent year-to-year loss on slightly less than 3.5 million shipped units, dropping its share of the market down to 19.6 percent.
Apple retained its third place ranking well behind Dell with a 11.4 percent market share for quarter four, but was ahead of both Lenovo and Toshiba. Aside from HP, Lenovo was the only major vendor to show year-over-year growth, gaining 11.6 percent in the last quarter of 2012. The company trailed Apple by some 500,000 shipped units, but rocketed past Toshiba which suffered a massive decline, posting 33.9 percent negative growth. For the fourth quarter, Toshiba saw 1.26 million PCs shipped, a drop of almost 650,000 units from last year. The company's U.S. market share fell from 10.2 percent to 7.1 percent.
Unit shipments are in thousands. | Source: IDC
According to IDC's quarterly estimates, Apple shipped roughly 2.03 million Macs over the three-month period ending in December, just 3,000 units shy of last year's performance. Despite showing negative growth in quarter four, Apple managed to gain market share over other PC vendors like Toshiba, which took huge hits over the same period.
It can be speculated that rollout issues with the newly redesigned iMac are to blame for Apple's slip into the red, with the all-in-ones still in short supply more than a month after being launched at the end of November.
Overall, U.S. PC shipments fell to 17.75 million from 18.6 million a year ago, representing a negative growth rate of 4.5 percent.
"Although the third quarter was focused on the clearing of Windows 7 inventory, preliminary research indicates the clearance did not significantly boost the uptake of Windows 8 systems in Q4," said Jay Chou, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. "Lost in the shuffle to promote a touch-centric PC, vendors have not forcefully stressed other features that promote a more secure, reliable and efficient user experience. As Windows 8 matures, and other corresponding variables such as Ultrabook pricing continue to drop, hopefully the PC market can see a reset in both messaging and demand in 2013."
Once again, HP held on to the top spot, bucking the downward trend to gain 12.4 percent for the quarter on shipments nearing 4.8 million units. The company now accounts for 27 percent of the U.S. market. In the No. 2 spot was Dell, which suffered a hefty 16.6 percent year-to-year loss on slightly less than 3.5 million shipped units, dropping its share of the market down to 19.6 percent.
Apple retained its third place ranking well behind Dell with a 11.4 percent market share for quarter four, but was ahead of both Lenovo and Toshiba. Aside from HP, Lenovo was the only major vendor to show year-over-year growth, gaining 11.6 percent in the last quarter of 2012. The company trailed Apple by some 500,000 shipped units, but rocketed past Toshiba which suffered a massive decline, posting 33.9 percent negative growth. For the fourth quarter, Toshiba saw 1.26 million PCs shipped, a drop of almost 650,000 units from last year. The company's U.S. market share fell from 10.2 percent to 7.1 percent.
Comments
Apple is unequivocally doomed.
At -16.6 and -33.9, Dell and Toshiba are getting spanked.
I'm not a Windows guru, but I wonder why the sales decline is hitting them so hard?
They also are not shipping iMacs! Maybe if they offered computers that they could actually ship, it would help.
I sort of think that people are missing something here: PCs arent going unused, they just work longer, teh laptop i bought in 2004 needed to be replaced in 2006, and that one needed replaced in 2008. the one from 2008 worked fine for me till mid last year, and I plan to make my current PC work till at least q1 2015 - On the other hand, the flip phone on my belt in 2005 worked just fine untill 2008 when I got an iphone, which I replaced in 2009, 2010, and early 2012 - I will soon be replacing the 2011 ipad, and will have to replace the new one in late 2014 or early 15.
People replace phones and tablets way more than PCs now BC PCs are mature.
Bigger piece of a shrinking market.
Apple was not shipping iMacs through much of the fourth quarter and when they did ship the new models production was extremely limited. This would have a larger impact on overall shipments than a decline in the PC market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Apple is unequivocally doomed.
And Apple can't make their iMacs fast enough. Hmmmm... Oh OK. So how does IDC get these numbers when Apple hasn't released their final numbers>?
Well, now we know what impact Windows 8 had on the PC market when it came out in the 4th quarter. It killed it.
Microsoft is starting to enter a RIM-like death spiral. They're huge compared to RIM - and more diversified with their Office app monopoly and back-end products like Exchange and SQL Server - so they can circle the drain for years. But Windows is a huge chunk of their revenue and profit and the reason why they're so dominant with Office apps and in the backshop. As that dominance collapses, it'll open ever larger opportunities for Microsoft rivals like Google and Apple when it comes to user-focused applications (like Office), and on the backend for firms like Oracle.
Actually, now that I think about it, it's more like an HP death-spiral than a RIM death spiral. Still huge, but increasingly irrelevant and with ever-shriveling profits based on obsolete bits of once-crucial technology being rapidly displaced in the market by offerings from numerous other competitors.
In other words, they're a giant, poorly-run buggywhip factory.
Guessing. How accurate we're they in previous quarters?
Quote:
Originally Posted by a_greer
I sort of think that people are missing something here: PCs arent going unused, they just work longer, teh laptop i bought in 2004 needed to be replaced in 2006, and that one needed replaced in 2008. the one from 2008 worked fine for me till mid last year, and I plan to make my current PC work till at least q1 2015 - On the other hand, the flip phone on my belt in 2005 worked just fine untill 2008 when I got an iphone, which I replaced in 2009, 2010, and early 2012 - I will soon be replacing the 2011 ipad, and will have to replace the new one in late 2014 or early 15.
You should have no trouble, then, explaining why Apple performed so relatively well despite having the most reliable, long lasting computers (according to every reliability study) out there. Go!
That's very good, isn't it?
I seriously hope they terminate production of cMBP, current Mac pro and maybe even the mini, so they can focus everything on Airs and rMBP. Better screens and Haswell for Airs, cheaper rMBP (400$ at least), dGPU for 13" rMBP, updated dGPU for 15", Haswell for rMBP, mavbe a 17" model with something special. New desktop model to substitute the Mac Pro.
Then, more focus on the software side of things, please. Better iWork, true quicktime pro replacement. A new OS or 10.8.x updates to address skeoumorphism (?) and to focus on speed and stability, not features.
p.s: We are talking about Apple. Making an Office suite that's more user/friendly, good looking and more stable than MSoffice isn't enough. Making a better OS than Windows isn't enough. Apple is huge, they must focus more on OSX. They always had the best OS, but they have to be "much better", as OSX was against XP and vista.
Yes, there are consequences to mediocre products.
People are slowing spending for a variety of reasons... For one, there is the widespread belief that we may be headed for another financial crash, brought on by the irresponsible spending of our government (and the insistence of the public that no cuts are acceptable). Most economists I'm aware of (who are not Keynesians) are very pessimistic about the state of the economy in the near and long-term future in the US.
Yes. If the factory produces 5 Macintoshes per day; Apple is not making them fast enough.
Maybe they should make a mac and someone will buy one.
I've been wanting to buy a new Mac Pro for 3 years but I'm not spending several thousand on several year old tech. Aren't APPLE the biggest company in the world?
You can make iphones and mac pros you know. It's possible.