Surging Mac sales put Apple among top five global PC vendors for first time, IDC says
The Macintosh may have posted its strongest worldwide market share yet last quarter, according to the latest estimates from IDC, which place Apple among the top five global PC vendors for the first time.
Source: IDC
Mac shipments were up an estimated 8.9 percent in the third quarter of calendar 2014, IDC reported on Wednesday, to nearly 5 million total units. That was enough to overtake Asus and place Apple in the No. 5 position with a 6.3 percent share of the total worldwide market.
While Apple has consistently remained among the top five computer makers in America, it has not gained that status worldwide, where cheaper Windows-based PCs have continuously dominated. But a particularly strong back-to-school quarter for Apple, led by refreshed MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, appears to have propelled the Mac into the elite class.
Updates to Apple's Mac lineup thus far this year have focused on value, and the efforts appear to have been paying off. With a lack of significant chip upgrades available from partner Intel, Apple has opted to add more memory and RAM, or slash prices, across its product lineup.
Most notably, the MacBook Air lineup now starts at just $899, making them the most affordable mass-market notebooks Apple has ever sold.
IDC said on Wednesday that Apple's price cuts, along with improved demand in mature markets, has allowed the company's Mac lineup to consistently outgrow the PC market.
Total worldwide PC shipments are estimated by IDC to have dropped 1.7 percent, but the top five vendors all saw year over year increases. Lenovo was in first place with 15.7 million units shipped, followed by HP (14.7 million), Dell (10.4 million), and Acer (6.6 million) before Apple rounded out the top five.
The results were slightly different from competing estimates published by Gartner on Wednesday, showing Asus retaining the No. 5 worldwide PC position. Gartner believes that Asus shipped 5.8 million units in the third quarter of 2014.
Source: IDC
Domestically, IDC pegs Apple's shipments at 2.2 million units, good for 13 percent of its home market. If the estimate proves accurate, U.S. sales would be up 9.3 percent year over year.
Gartner, meanwhile, believes Apple shipped slightly more Macs in the U.S. last quarter -- 2.4 million units, good for an estimated 14.3 percent American market share. Gartner predicts that Apple increased Mac shipments by 14.4 percent year over year.
The actual numbers will be revealed by Apple on Oct. 20, when the company reports the results of its fourth fiscal quarter of 2014. In the same three-month period a year ago, Apple sold 4.6 million Macs, down slightly from the 4.9 million it sold in the same period in 2012.
Source: IDC
Mac shipments were up an estimated 8.9 percent in the third quarter of calendar 2014, IDC reported on Wednesday, to nearly 5 million total units. That was enough to overtake Asus and place Apple in the No. 5 position with a 6.3 percent share of the total worldwide market.
While Apple has consistently remained among the top five computer makers in America, it has not gained that status worldwide, where cheaper Windows-based PCs have continuously dominated. But a particularly strong back-to-school quarter for Apple, led by refreshed MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, appears to have propelled the Mac into the elite class.
Updates to Apple's Mac lineup thus far this year have focused on value, and the efforts appear to have been paying off. With a lack of significant chip upgrades available from partner Intel, Apple has opted to add more memory and RAM, or slash prices, across its product lineup.
Most notably, the MacBook Air lineup now starts at just $899, making them the most affordable mass-market notebooks Apple has ever sold.
IDC said on Wednesday that Apple's price cuts, along with improved demand in mature markets, has allowed the company's Mac lineup to consistently outgrow the PC market.
Total worldwide PC shipments are estimated by IDC to have dropped 1.7 percent, but the top five vendors all saw year over year increases. Lenovo was in first place with 15.7 million units shipped, followed by HP (14.7 million), Dell (10.4 million), and Acer (6.6 million) before Apple rounded out the top five.
The results were slightly different from competing estimates published by Gartner on Wednesday, showing Asus retaining the No. 5 worldwide PC position. Gartner believes that Asus shipped 5.8 million units in the third quarter of 2014.
Source: IDC
Domestically, IDC pegs Apple's shipments at 2.2 million units, good for 13 percent of its home market. If the estimate proves accurate, U.S. sales would be up 9.3 percent year over year.
Gartner, meanwhile, believes Apple shipped slightly more Macs in the U.S. last quarter -- 2.4 million units, good for an estimated 14.3 percent American market share. Gartner predicts that Apple increased Mac shipments by 14.4 percent year over year.
The actual numbers will be revealed by Apple on Oct. 20, when the company reports the results of its fourth fiscal quarter of 2014. In the same three-month period a year ago, Apple sold 4.6 million Macs, down slightly from the 4.9 million it sold in the same period in 2012.
Comments
Apple is trending in the right direction purely because they are getting the blending of mobile and desktop right IMO.
I also believe that they will make significant gains if they bring a mainstream somewhat affordable 5k iMac to market like is being rumored...
They will be able influence the 5k content which will be vital to higher resolutions taking hold. I also think they can get this done with reasonable prices. The days of re buying movies just to upgrade resolution should be behind us.
fix first chart Apple <> Acer
Would be really interesting to see the model breakdown. I bet MBA or MBP kicks the pants off any particular model of Dell or HP.
Is it just me, or do the words in this story not match the figures in the table? The first table seems to clearly show Apple in third position in Q3 last year, thereby making the headline here a bit off.
And Asus, who Apple "overtook" aren't even on the table.
IIRC last quarter the two best selling models were the MBA and the MP. My guess is that they sell a lot of MBA's normally, there was a lot of pent up demand for a new Mac Pro so its sales could be higher than normal.
Buy the Lakers and give them all iPads, gotta upstage The Ballmer somehow.
They just lost 21.8%.
One could make the case that the fiasco with Windows 8 had a negative effect on PC sales. If so, then it will be interesting to see whether sales will recover if Windows 10 is successful. Going another step further, if Windows 10 is not successful, will the "traditional" PC makers start going out of business, or will there be an effort to develop an alternate OS to Windows and MacOS, probably based on Linux?
Food for thought…
The new retina Air will blow everything out of the water. I'll be buying my daughters each one for post secondary.
"While Apple was the fourth-largest personal computer company internationally, in the United States it fell to fifth place behind Dell Computer. Dell was the big gainer domestically last year. The company saw its sales grow 71 percent in 1996 as it gained 2.3 percent in market share."
And I seem to recall even better rankings in the early 1990's. It may be true that it's the first time it's shown up on IDC's lists, but IDC's methodology is historically crappy. (Not that Gartner is any better. I'm only saying that this may just be the first time that IDC has ACKNOWLEDGED Apple as a top PC vendor.)
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/27/business/pc-industry-worldwide-grew-by-18-last-year.html
But two quarter's ago the combined estimates from these companies was a fall of between 2-6%, but Mac sales went up by 17%.
Last quarter, the combined estimates were between a fall of 1-6%, but sales were up by 18%.
So either both companies have finally revised their methods, or, they are well off again. You know what I want to see, but it would be nice if they did come closer.
Maybe, but know that when Win 7 was out, Mac sales were increasing at a rate of between 25 and 35% a year. It was the iPad that slowed it down, just not the way it slowed Windows sales down..
I remember when the first MBA was introduced by Steve and both the hardware and the price took everyone's breath away... But Apple hung in there and refined away the hardware and pricing until it is the sought-after laptop it is today. I wonder what tricks they may announce in the next ten days or so that will continue to raise the bar...?
Meanwhile, I can't believe the LOW prices HP is asking for their entry-level laptops and tablets... and yet Apple is hanging in there! Those entry-level HP laptops must be some real junk!