Apple sees Mac sales dip, marketshare increase in Q4 PC industry estimates

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2019
Compounding problems stemming from soft iPhone sales, Apple may have seen Mac shipments decline in the December quarter, early research estimates indicated on Thursday.

Gartner PC Shipments


Apple's unit shipments came in at 4.9 million, down from 5.1 million in the same quarter a year ago, according to Gartner data. That's a decline of 3.8 percent.

The company's share of the market rose marginally from 7.1 to 7.2 percent, a significant uptick given that the overall PC industry saw shipments fall from 71.7 million to 68.6 million units. Some of the toughest blows were suffered by Asus and Acer, which saw their shipments drop 10.7 percent and 18.3 percent, respectively.

Lenovo, however, saw shipments rise 5.9 percent to 16.6 million, making it the dominant computer vendor with a 24.2 percent marketshare. HP ranked second despite a 4.4 percent dip, while Dell rose 1.4 percent to 10.9 million, keeping it securely in third place. Apple claimed fourth.

Gartner reported that top rankings should remain the same for 2018 as a whole, with Lenovo at 58.5 million units, HP at 56.3 million, Dell at 41.9 million, and Apple at 18 million -- Apple's numbers are estimated to be down 5 percent versus 2017.

Under pressure from phones and tablets, the PC industry has been in decline for seven years, and is forecast to see a 1.3 percent dip once 2018 data is finalized. Apple has yet to announce its official December-quarter financials.

On Jan. 2, though, it shocked the tech industry and investors by saying it was expecting $84 billion in revenue instead of a previously forecast $89 billion to $93 billion. CEO Tim Cook linked the issue mostly to poor Chinese iPhone sales, but also blamed "foreign exchange headwinds," fewer carrier subsidies, "economic weakness in some emerging markets," and its discounted iPhone battery replacement program.

Apple is allegedly cutting March-quarter iPhone production by 10 percent.

Gartner's PC data can sometimes be dramatically inaccurate. It initially estimated that Apple sold 4.9 million Macs in calendar Q3, when in reality it managed about 5.3 million.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 45
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    What! I thought there was all this pent up demand for a new MBA and mini! 200k less units! My cup runneth over!*
    Does this mean people aren’t embracing a y series processor and a 300 nit screen at a higher price, while lower priced competitors have u series processors? Or exorbitant prices for extra storage or memory over base config?

    What is the world coming to?


    * remembers its Gartner after all.
    edited January 2019 muthuk_vanalingamGeorgeBMac
  • Reply 2 of 45
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Wait that means Tim Cook lied on mad money this week when he told Cramer that Mac sales were up. Who to believe!!!
  • Reply 3 of 45
    wood1208wood1208 Posts: 2,905member
    Until Apple's strategy doesn't change from just selling into high priced premium market to let's expand MAC ecosystem, MACs market share and overall sale will go no where. Some quarter bit higher, some lower. On an average, will be same level year over year. Some help can come from by making lower priced but higher margin MACS by using it's own higher performance(lower cost) CPU/GPU and other components that go into it's products. It is not people don't want to upgrade/buy new MAC Laptops but due to overall value it offers, make buyers staying with their current MAC computers bit longer. Same thing going on in Phone segment.
    edited January 2019 caladanian
  • Reply 4 of 45
    From Apple’s statement when it revised it’s numbers down: 

    Also, as I mentioned earlier, revenue outside of our iPhone business grew by almost 19 percent year-over-year, including all-time record revenue from Services, Wearables and Mac”

    While is doesn’t guarantee that sales didn’t decline marginally, and Apple just sold each computer at a high ASP; the picture of Apple not doing well that Gartner is trying to paint, doesn’t correspond with the reality.
    applesnorangeschasmchiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 45
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,520member
    More expensive when models are refreshed and many Macs sporting old internals at full pricing. Hardly a surprise that numbers are going down.

    Such a shame though, it didn’t have to be this way. The neglect of the Mac platform as a whole is such a let down.
    caladanianwilliamlondon
  • Reply 6 of 45
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    Gartner is saying via Macrumors that Mac marketshare is down. I'm holding off on a new iMac because I refuse to pay £2250 for a two year old machine with a very mediocre GPU, and just 8GB RAM. It's laughable.
    caladanian80s_Apple_Guyflyingdpwilliamlondon
  • Reply 7 of 45
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    maestro64 said:
    Wait that means Tim Cook lied on mad money this week when he told Cramer that Mac sales were up. Who to believe!!!
    Cook said revenue was up, not sales.
    caladanian
  • Reply 8 of 45
    LatkoLatko Posts: 398member
    Tim & co must be so satisfied. A well executed orphaning strategy of increased price/performance proved to be highly effective
    edited January 2019 williamlondon
  • Reply 9 of 45
    entropys said:
    What! I thought there was all this pent up demand for a new MBA and mini! 200k less units! My cup runneth over!*
    Does this mean people aren’t embracing a y series processor and a 300 nit screen at a higher price, while lower priced competitors have u series processors? Or exorbitant prices for extra storage or memory over base config?

    What is the world coming to?


    * remembers its Gartner after all.
    Not sure what you're smoking, the new Air's screen and processor are far better than the old model. 99.9% of customers have no idea what a "Y" processor or a nit is.
    chasmp-dogbaconstangchristopher126chiaracerhomie3williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 45
    Success is something else. And the prices for more storage are indeed insane. 
    elijahgwilliamlondon
  • Reply 11 of 45
    jdwjdw Posts: 1,324member
    To keep Mac sales, specifically notebook Mac sales, from declining further, Apple needs to consider the needs and demands of The Rest of Us, and not just millennials who don't care about how good a keyboard feels, about what happens when you trip over the power cord, who don't care about how useful an SD card slot really is, who don't mind dongles, who don't care about a TouchBar they never use, who only use battery power and therefore don't care if there's no extension power cord in the box, and who don't care about fun things like the glowing Apple logo.  Generation X has the buying power, not millennials, and we also have a lot of legacy equipment too.  Our needs are different from theirs, yet like them, we want to buy Macs. Indeed, we of the older generation have a longer history with Apple and therefore have a more vested interest in seeing something appealing come out of Apple.  But we only want to buy Macs when those new Macs suit our needs.  Currently for me, only the iMac does that.  Apple notebooks have been ridiculous since late 2016.  Despite the fact Apple already had the MacBook and Air lines to satisfy the Johnny Ive death quest for ultimate thinness, Apple chose to gut the MacBook "Pro" in like manner, thereby rending all Apple notebooks largely the same.  It's now back the for Performa confusion days at Apple. 

    Some argue that Apple is now an iPhone company so the Mac doesn't matter.  If that silliness is true, Tim Cook's commitment to the Mac would then be a lie, and then we have the bigger question of "why bother"?  That's especially true of the Mac Pro.  If rumors are right about the forthcoming Mac Pro being so expensive The Rest of Us cannot afford it, and thereby deliberately keeping the potential number of buyers to the same or less as the Apple Watch solid gold Edition buyers, why the heck do they even bother designing the thing?  Seriously!  It makes zero sense.  Zero.

    No, we need a true MacBook "Pro" and a 17" version, and an affordable Mac Pro too.  One cannot argue in defense of the status quo anymore.  Something big needs to change in Apple's design labs where function starts to take a little more priority than form.  And I personally hope that change will be a stark IMPROVEMENT over what I've seen in the last few years.  We need a Steve Jobsian style shakeup in Cupertino.
    elijahgbaconstangflyingdpwilliamlondon
  • Reply 12 of 45
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,275member
    Yes, Cook said revenue was up rather than sales -- but inasmuch as Mac prices haven't changed in quite a long time, and it's not like the iMac Pro or top-o-the-line MBP's suddenly took off, you can very reasonably infer from his statement that Mac sales did approximately as well as, or better than, they did last year.

    Also, please try to remember Gartner's extremely bad track record on predicting ... well, anything, but especially Apple sales. AI has done numerous articles (some not even by DED!) about how wrong Gartner (and IDC) have historically been on predicting Apple demand. We're 19 days away from the actual earnings report, and 20 days away from proving Gartner to be inaccurate yet again.
    p-dogbaconstangwatto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 45
    Apple is in the middle of something revolutionary in the Mac space.  People probably waiting for it to be announced.  
  • Reply 14 of 45
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,275member
    wood1208 said:
    Until Apple's strategy doesn't change from just selling into high priced premium market to let's expand MAC ecosystem, MACs market share and overall sale will go no where.
    I'm certainly going to believe the expert analysis of some NPC that doesn't know Mac isn't an acronym or that "nowhere" is one word. :lol:
    p-dogbaconstangelijahgchiaracerhomie3fastasleepwatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 45
    Scot1Scot1 Posts: 121member
     All I know is that I’ve been waiting for an updated iMac with an oled screen. My 2012 is getting long in the tooth
    williamlondon
  • Reply 16 of 45
    p-dogp-dog Posts: 131member
    chasm said:
    wood1208 said:
    Until Apple's strategy doesn't change from just selling into high priced premium market to let's expand MAC ecosystem, MACs market share and overall sale will go no where.
    I'm certainly going to believe the expert analysis of some NPC that doesn't know Mac isn't an acronym or that "nowhere" is one word. :lol:
    You beat me to the punch there, especially about Mac not being an acronym.  I thought he was referring to the cosmetics company, M.A.C.
    chiachasmwatto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 45
    davgregdavgreg Posts: 1,036member
    I bought a new Mac mini when announced and am still awaiting a new Pro Mac that is hopefully not a styling exercise like the trashcan. Money is just sitting in the checking account awaiting a decent headless Mac workstation. Pretty much done with Apple laptops- I have an iPad Pro and will probably get a Surface Pro at some point.

    The mini is nice but is crippled with vampire video. I am so far underwhelmed by the eGPU options.


    williamlondon
  • Reply 18 of 45
    lennlenn Posts: 36member
    Cook and his motley gang don't understand that the vast majority of Mac users just want something that will run MacOS and be reasonably priced. Cook and Shiller are obsessed with over engineering everything that comes out of Apple and their Chinese factories. Just give us something that uses the latest CPU and GPUs and forget all the other crap like making it super thin and making it look like a freaking trashcan!!!!!
    elijahgmuthuk_vanalingamwilliamlondon
  • Reply 19 of 45
    I was one of the customer who was looking into buying Apple computer but in the end decided against it. When I wanted to buy laptop, I could not justify the exorbitant price of Mac computers and then went on to buy Asus Zebook and saved almost $1,200 CAD and with the more powerful and latest hardware. I was then looking to replace Mac Mini 2014 but after seeing that SSD is soldered and Apple throttles it, I hold off buying the over priced Mac mini. The only thing I want from Apple is MacOS and I am even willing to pay for it same price as Windows but since that is not going to happen, I am going to build myself Hackintosh and save myself paying Apple tax and get far better hardware at far better price. Talk about the missed opportunity. Except MacOS, I do not care about Apple and they can go ahead and close down their business and I will not loose a sleep.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 20 of 45
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    I was one of the customer who was looking into buying Apple computer but in the end decided against it. When I wanted to buy laptop, I could not justify the exorbitant price of Mac computers and then went on to buy Asus Zebook and saved almost $1,200 CAD and with the more powerful and latest hardware. I was then looking to replace Mac Mini 2014 but after seeing that SSD is soldered and Apple throttles it, I hold off buying the over priced Mac mini. The only thing I want from Apple is MacOS and I am even willing to pay for it same price as Windows but since that is not going to happen, I am going to build myself Hackintosh and save myself paying Apple tax and get far better hardware at far better price. Talk about the missed opportunity. Except MacOS, I do not care about Apple and they can go ahead and close down their business and I will not loose a sleep.
    You need to look up how large versus small SSDs perform and why.
    elijahgchiaracerhomie3emoellerwatto_cobra
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