MacBook refreshes push Apple to 4th in global notebook shipments
Apple considerably improved its MacBook shipments in Q3 2017 compared to the previous quarter, market research firm TrendForce claims, with Apple said to have overtaken Asus in the global notebook shipment rankings for this quarter and achieving fourth place amongst other notebook brands.
Apple is said to have increased its shipments by 11.3 percent quarter on quarter, according to TrendForce, with third quarter shipments MacBook shipments reported at 4.43 million in the period. The increased sales also helped Apple's market share, boosting its standing from a reported 10 percent in the second quarter to 10.4 percent in the third.
TrendForce analyst Kou-Han Tseng highlights Apple's focus on new MacBook Pro models for the third quarter as one of the reasons for the increase in shipments, continuing from strong shipments of the 12-inch MacBook in the second quarter.
While Apple does not break down figures for product categories in its quarterly results, it was revealed in early November that Mac sales as a whole grew to 5.4 million units in the quarter, up from 4.9 million Macs sold in the same period in 2016. In the analyst conference call, it was noted that 2017 has been the best year ever for the Mac, with the highest annual Mac revenue in Apple's history, the best September quarter ever for the Mac, and an all-time record quarter for Mac sales in China.
As part of the comments from CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri, the growth of 25 percent was attributed to the MacBook and MacBook Pro product line refresh from June, along with a strong showing of back-to-school sales. Mac purchases from the educational market were claimed to have increased by double digits year-over-year.
The top notebook vendor on the TrendForce list is HP, noted as reaching a single-season shipment total of 11 million units for the first time, after reportedly seeing a quarterly increase of 17.6 percent. Second place Lenovo is said to have caught up on poor sales from the first half of the year, reporting 8.58 million units in the third quarter and growth of 6.5 percent.
Dell maintained its second-quarter commercial notebook shipments, recording 6.65 million units for the period and increasing by just 1.4 percent on a quarterly basis.
Previously in fourth place, the fifth-place Asus had similar sales to Apple in Q2, but has dropped down to 3.82 million units for Q3, while the 6th place Acer improved by 2.8 percent to 3.31 million units. For both Asus and Acer, Trendforce believes the two will enjoy higher sales in the fourth quarter, including some recovery of demand in Europe.
Overall, the total number of shipments recorded by Trendforce reached 42.7 million units, a sequential quarterly increase of 6.8 percent, and a year-on-year increase of 0.9 percent. For the full year of 2017, it is predicted by the analytics firm that the notebook market will reach 162.4 million units shipped, with annual shipments estimated to change from decline to growth, increasing by 0.7 percent.
Industry observers have previously suggested the notebook market as a whole was stagnant or contracting, but Apple's previous results suggest that, for 2017, Mac continues to be a prosperous market for the firm.
Apple is said to have increased its shipments by 11.3 percent quarter on quarter, according to TrendForce, with third quarter shipments MacBook shipments reported at 4.43 million in the period. The increased sales also helped Apple's market share, boosting its standing from a reported 10 percent in the second quarter to 10.4 percent in the third.
TrendForce analyst Kou-Han Tseng highlights Apple's focus on new MacBook Pro models for the third quarter as one of the reasons for the increase in shipments, continuing from strong shipments of the 12-inch MacBook in the second quarter.
While Apple does not break down figures for product categories in its quarterly results, it was revealed in early November that Mac sales as a whole grew to 5.4 million units in the quarter, up from 4.9 million Macs sold in the same period in 2016. In the analyst conference call, it was noted that 2017 has been the best year ever for the Mac, with the highest annual Mac revenue in Apple's history, the best September quarter ever for the Mac, and an all-time record quarter for Mac sales in China.
As part of the comments from CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri, the growth of 25 percent was attributed to the MacBook and MacBook Pro product line refresh from June, along with a strong showing of back-to-school sales. Mac purchases from the educational market were claimed to have increased by double digits year-over-year.
The top notebook vendor on the TrendForce list is HP, noted as reaching a single-season shipment total of 11 million units for the first time, after reportedly seeing a quarterly increase of 17.6 percent. Second place Lenovo is said to have caught up on poor sales from the first half of the year, reporting 8.58 million units in the third quarter and growth of 6.5 percent.
Dell maintained its second-quarter commercial notebook shipments, recording 6.65 million units for the period and increasing by just 1.4 percent on a quarterly basis.
Previously in fourth place, the fifth-place Asus had similar sales to Apple in Q2, but has dropped down to 3.82 million units for Q3, while the 6th place Acer improved by 2.8 percent to 3.31 million units. For both Asus and Acer, Trendforce believes the two will enjoy higher sales in the fourth quarter, including some recovery of demand in Europe.
Overall, the total number of shipments recorded by Trendforce reached 42.7 million units, a sequential quarterly increase of 6.8 percent, and a year-on-year increase of 0.9 percent. For the full year of 2017, it is predicted by the analytics firm that the notebook market will reach 162.4 million units shipped, with annual shipments estimated to change from decline to growth, increasing by 0.7 percent.
Industry observers have previously suggested the notebook market as a whole was stagnant or contracting, but Apple's previous results suggest that, for 2017, Mac continues to be a prosperous market for the firm.
Comments
It is overpriced (comparatively, as they raised the prices). The dongles are a pain for some. The touch-bar was an unnecessary addition, that for some is actually unwanted (meaning we'd have to buy the lowest end model). The keyboard leaves a lot to be desired (and possibly is a failure point). The trackpad is way too darn big. They aren't awful, but they aren't as good as the model they replaced.
https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever
I think a lot of confusion could be saved if we tried harder to distinguish between: Apple-haters, Apple-evangelists who want Apple to improve, the new target Apple market, and fanboys. I'm probably as guilty of assuming people who love their new products are fanboys, as people are who think my strong criticism of Apple recently means I'm an Apple-hater.
Another example I can think of is VMs. If you want a Windows 10 VM or two running while you run your Mac apps, and some Unix VMs, etc. you could easily run out of RAM. Of course, even at 32, you could run out in these situations... but that's a lot more capability before you do.
But, yes, that's a particular segment of even the true pro market. I remember an article from one of the top security analysts who did a bunch of tests after the laptops came out (Apple hired him, so his blog is now down, I think). He run a ton of Pro apps, VMs, development tools, etc. and until he went really nuts (well beyond the needs of the particulars like I described above), he couldn't detect a slow-down. His theory was that the SSD was so fast (and good memory management) that even when it pushed beyond the amount of RAM, the system handled it pretty gracefully.
Now, I'm back to the reality that I'm going to need a Mac Pro and a laptop anyway. But, that wouldn't have had to be the case if Apple had done a better job. If the 2015 MBP had TB3, it would be about perfect. In fact, depending on what Apple does do with the Mac Pro... I might end up getting a 2015 MBP and just dealing with the bandwidth loss of TB2.
When I was the MD of a SME, spending money on kit was only done when there was no other alternative. I preferred to pay my staff better. We all had fully loaded MBP's because we did a lot of work on the road. It was pay less and get more kit or not. The staff wanted MBP's and the iMac's etc were not essential to operating our business but sometimes we do struggle with RAM. Some of our datasets were pretty large.
I actually was waiting for the new Macbook Pro and ended buying the older model due to the lack of ports and was way overpriced.
What is scarier, is that Apple keeps making excuses and failed to recognize the failure of the latest Macbook Pro.
-No mag-safe
-less ports
-So called Pro, but do not have enough RAM (16GB)
-problems with Battery.
- Soldered components.
- Lame HardDrives.
-Overpriced.
It is also scary that the entire computer line up has not been updated.
- Mac minis
- Mac Pros (another big failure)
- iMac (although they updated the internals, the design has been the same for how many years now?). Compare to the Surface Pro, it is a joke.
Not even to mention, that they make all computers closed, harder and harder to upgrade.
So sad, that many pro users, tired of waiting have been looking for Hackintosh, 2012 towers or PC options.
I was waiting for the new Macbook Pro, and when I saw it I bought the older model. Many of my Pros friends that bought the latest Macbook Pro they return it within a week.
Sadly Apple innovation has been left aside for sale numbers. it turned into a phone company.
That's part of it. If budget weren't a concern, I'd just buy a Mac Pro and 2015 MBP, and then see what Apple has in a year or two, or if I'm switching platforms. If I'm going to spend $3k+, it's either going to be the right laptop, or a Mac Pro and a cheap laptop, etc. And, more and more pros are trying to use their laptop between work and home, as well as on the road. If you have a Mac Pro or iMac, then what do you do when on the road, or need to work on something from home? It's easy to have a monitor both at work and home.
Yes, that's becoming an option for some things... though you have to be willing to do Windows/Unix (I don't think you can install macOS). That's the big reason that pushed me towards MBP w/ eGPU, as if I need rending power, it's cheaper to spin up an AWS render farm than try to have a bunch of power waiting around in-house (unless I had enough to work to keep it busy).
Yep. Depending what Apple does with the Mac Pro (or even Mini, I suppose)... I'll probably get a 2015 MBP if they are still available. I'm just really bummed it couldn't be a 2016/17. There is very little difference besides TB2 vs TB3 and lack of ports. I just hate to see a product line go backwards.
Exactly! It's not like it's just simply to leave Apple once you're heavily invested. That point might be coming though if they don't shape-up.
And, heck, if it were a build-to-order option, I'd PAY $100 to remove the darn Touch Bar! I don't want it. I won't buy a model with it. So, that means I'm limited to the 2015, or the lowest end 13" 2016/17 (and then I can't have 4 cores). Or... I buy a Dell XPS 13 with quad-core.
Here a guy shows just how many pro-grade programs you can run without issue before you hit the 16GB and start page swapping. I really doubt any of the web-complainers are doing this.
https://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=6355
I finally got my MBP to do a teeny bit of back and forth swapping as I pushed up close (15GB) to the 16GB memory limit. I have to open almost every last thing on my system. Here’s what I ran:
- VMwarei Fusion: Three running virtual machines (Windows 10, macOS Sierra, Debian Linux)
- Adobe Photoshop CC: Four 1+gb 36 MP professional, multi-layer photos
- Adobe InDesign CC: A 22 page photography-intensive project
- Adobe Bridge CC: Browsing a folder with 163GB photos (307 images total)
- DxO Optics Pro: (Pro-photography workflow software) Editing a folder of images
- Xcode: Five production Objective-C projects, all cleaned and rebuilt
- Microsoft PowerPoint: A slide deck presentation
- Microsoft Word: Fifteen different chapters (separate .doc files) from my last book
- Microsoft Excel: A single workbook
- MachOView: Analyzing a daemon binary
- Mozilla FireFox: Four different websites, each in a separate window
- Safari: Eleven different websites, each in a separate window
- Preview: Three PDF books, including one very graphic intensive book
- Hopper Disassembler: Performing an analysis on a binary
- WireShark: Performing a live network capture as I do all of this
- IDA Pro 64-bit: Analyzing a 64-bit intel binary
- Apple Mail: Viewing four mailboxes
- Tweetbot: Reading all the flames and trolls in my mentions
- iBooks: Currently viewing an ebook I paid for
- Skype: Logged in and idling
- Terminal: A few sessions idling
- iTunes
- Little Flocker
- Little Snitch
- OverSight
- Finder
- Messages
- FaceTime
- Calendar
- Contacts
- Photos
- Veracrypt
- Activity Monitor
- Path Finder
- Console
- Probably a lot I’ve missed
Conclusion, again, is that it takes an enormous amount of work to burn up 16GB of RAM on your MacBook Pro, unless you’re running a lot of poorly written apps that hog memory, have bloatware running at startup, or possibly doing a lot of advanced, high-end video editing (which I hope to experiment with at some point).What hurts it for a pro product is, IMO, the keyboard and the Touch Bar (or lack of option to not have it). And, then cooling / fan-noise might be a problem (for a pro product), but that's always been an issue for the MacBook Pro line... maybe more of a reality (though I think it could be solved). Possibly ports (or lack of) but that can go either way. I'm fine with just TB3, but if I did certain jobs, not having built-in ports can be a huge pain.
It's interesting that the 'refurb' section of the Apple site is packed with 2016/17 models, and every on-line retailer seems to be discounting them. I've never seen that before with Apple's laptops. So, I'd guess you're right about a bunch of buy and returns. And, I think they did price it too high, so now they are discounting a bit through the retailers.