Apple's Mac sales are up a lot or down slightly in Q2 depending on who you ask

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited July 2019
Market research firms IDC and Gartner released widely diverging worldwide PC marketshare estimates for the second quarter of 2019 on Thursday, with one firm finding Mac shipments up nearly 10% while the other saw Apple suffering negative growth.

IDC
IDC's second quarter numbers.


According to IDC, Apple shipped 4.1 million Macs during the quarter ending in June, up 9.6% from from an estimated 3.7 million units shipped over the same period in 2018. The result earned the Cupertino tech giant a a 6.3% share of the worldwide PC market, up from 6% last year, IDC said.

Those figures contrast with estimates from Gartner, which saw Apple ship 3.7 million Macs in quarter two, down 0.2% year-over-year. Apple obtained 5.9% of the global PC market, down from 6% in 2018, Gartner estimates.

Beyond Apple, the research firms disagreed on Acer's performance. The Taiwan-based company landed in fourth place on IDC's top-five list with 4.3 million units shipped, down 1.7% year-over-year. Gartner, however, saw the company slip to fifth place behind Apple on shipments of 3.4 million units, down 14.4% percent from the year-ago period.

Gartner
Gartner's second quarter numbers.


Both research firms placed Lenovo as the world's top PC manufacturer, with IDC estimating 16.3 million units shipped to Gartner's 15.8 million units. IDC put Lenovo's take of the market at 25.1% percent, not far off from Gartner's 25% estimate.

HP and Dell finished in second and third, respectively, with IDC estimating 15.4 million units shipped for HP, up 3.2% year-over-year. Gartner estimated HP's shipments at 14 million units, up 2.6% from the same period in 2018. Dell shipped 11.6 million computers, up 3.1% year-over-year, according to IDC. Gartner put Dell's shipments at 10.7 million units, up 2.1% from 2018.

Overall, IDC holds a much more rosy outlook on the PC market's vitality, finding the industry grew 4.7% year-on-year. Gartner's lay of the land, on the other hand, is relatively staid with total growth reaching an estimated 1.5% over the quarter.

Both IDC and Gartner's findings have come under fire over the past year, both by industry watchers and manufacturers. With Apple no longer reporting unit sales, however, media outlets are forced to rely on the estimates to gauge the health of Apple's Mac business.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    IDC seems bullish on the PC market and Gartner is bearish.  That is pretty much across the board.  Both are probably closer to being wrong than right.  I'd bet both estimates reflect market positions recommended to their customers.
    edited July 2019 FileMakerFeller
  • Reply 2 of 14
    EsquireCatsEsquireCats Posts: 1,268member
    Shrödinger's analysts.

    Which is pretty unbelievable considering that Apple's guidance figures have always been historically more accurate, and thus these analysts would merely need to weight them better in their reporting.
    FileMakerFeller
  • Reply 3 of 14
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,267member
    GUESSING. And not even intelligent guesses. Just throw a dart on a dartboard and you’ll be right at least twice as often as either of these “analyst” frauds.
    lkruppEsquireCatsFileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 14
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    How about we ask neither of them. 
    andrewj5790EsquireCatsFileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 14
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,148member
    Not that you would pay too close attention to the actual numbers in either’s analysis, which suffer from the limitations of all GCMs and tend to output factual sounding numbers that get embraced as fact by the gullible, they are OK for the broad direction of change.

    So these estimates/projections/whatever you want to call them could be an explanation (at least in Apple’s case) why this year the Mac seems to be actually getting some love from Cook et al. You have to admit that recent releases are certainly more worthy, and more timely, since the 2013-18 Mac interregnum.
    edited July 2019 EsquireCatswatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 14
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    And the amazing thing is these guessers can cause immediate and serious problems for the companies they follow yet they themselves never suffer any consequences when they are wrong. It’s just oh well, maybe next time we’ll be right.
    EsquireCatsFileMakerFellerwatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 7 of 14
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,030member
    Neither firm has a decent track record for accuracy.

    It is best to ignore both because chances are one or both will be wrong.
    FileMakerFellerwatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 8 of 14
    With Apple no longer reporting unit sales, however, media outlets are forced to rely on the estimates to gauge the health of Apple's Mac business. 
    Sorry, but that’s just not a valid statement. In fact, media outlets would be well advised to ignore the estimates of both firms, since they are known to be unreliable in their forecasts. How either firm can pretend to actually have valid sales estimates, when neither have any visibility whatsoever into Apple Store sales data, is beyond me. 

    Media outlets aren’t “forced” to rely—or to even bother passing along—the latest guesswork of any market research firm. Rather, they could simply throw a properly labeled 12-sided die, or utilize a dartboard. Alternatively, they could do something even crazier and simply report the audited figures that Apple provides. Quarterly Mac revenue are an excellent way to gauge the health of Apple’s Mac business—unlike the estimates provided by market researchers—who literally have to guess at Apple Store sales, since Apple does not disclose any data at all that would enable them to make a valid forecast. 
    edited July 2019 FileMakerFellerwatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 9 of 14
    I hope Apple had very low iMac sales this past year, just so they would see the the need to put more love into the desktops and not just the laptops. I have no use for a laptop. The iMac pro is 2 years old now (and a little over priced) and iMac needs a major redesign. It has not had one in over 7 years! That is just Lazy...
  • Reply 10 of 14
    dedgeckodedgecko Posts: 169member
    I hope Apple had very low iMac sales this past year, just so they would see the the need to put more love into the desktops and not just the laptops. I have no use for a laptop. The iMac pro is 2 years old now (and a little over priced) and iMac needs a major redesign. It has not had one in over 7 years! That is just Lazy...
    What needs to change on the iMac/iMac Pro?  

    When does Apple change stuff just to change it?  

    If there’s not a valid reason for the update, then why change?
    FileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 14
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,148member
    dedgecko said:
    I hope Apple had very low iMac sales this past year, just so they would see the the need to put more love into the desktops and not just the laptops. I have no use for a laptop. The iMac pro is 2 years old now (and a little over priced) and iMac needs a major redesign. It has not had one in over 7 years! That is just Lazy...
    What needs to change on the iMac/iMac Pro?  
    When does Apple change stuff just to change it?  
    If there’s not a valid reason for the update, then why

     iMac pro definitely needs an update, or at the least repositioned with a price drop.


    edited July 2019
  • Reply 12 of 14
    entropys said:
    dedgecko said:
    I hope Apple had very low iMac sales this past year, just so they would see the the need to put more love into the desktops and not just the laptops. I have no use for a laptop. The iMac pro is 2 years old now (and a little over priced) and iMac needs a major redesign. It has not had one in over 7 years! That is just Lazy...
    What needs to change on the iMac/iMac Pro?  
    When does Apple change stuff just to change it?  
    If there’s not a valid reason for the update, then why

     iMac pro definitely needs an update, or at the least repositioned with a price drop.


    iMac Pro is sold at a fair price, I wouldn’t expect any price drops. Intel has announced the new Cascade Lake Xeon W-series CPUs, so now we can expect an iMac Pro refresh. If the new Mac Pro drops in September, I think Apple will want to give it a little space, so I don’t think we’ll see a new iMac Pro until Nov/Dec.

    TDP of the new Xeons are in the 180-200W range, compared to the 140W of the previous generation. So it’s reasonable to expect underclocked CPUs again, even if Apple can save 50W with AMD’s latest GPU (7nm/Navi/RDNA). Ideally Apple would beef up the cooling system a bit, and maximize the CPU/GPU gains that will be available soon.  
    edited July 2019 watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 14
    F_Kent_DF_Kent_D Posts: 98unconfirmed, member
    We should all look at household ownership as well as ownership from users in the professional media crowd so that we can see the real use specific sales of Mac's. The PC is in almost every business by default because they're cheap on the initial purchase standpoint. What a lot of people don't see is the maintenance cost of a business owning PC's rather than Mac. Also, the ability to own a Mac for 7 years, still get regular software updates, AND be able to sell it for a much better return also brings the cost of ownership down in the long run. The Mac OS and hardware is obviously geared towards a certain demographic therefore the sales #'s of such should be disqualified from being able to be compared to PC sales IMO. Apple will never sell as many Macs as the other 62 companies sell PC's, that will always be a fact until Microsoft goes belly up.
  • Reply 14 of 14
    F_Kent_DF_Kent_D Posts: 98unconfirmed, member
    We should all look at household ownership as well as ownership from users in the professional media crowd so that we can see the real use specific sales of Mac's. The PC is in almost every business by default because they're cheap on the initial purchase standpoint. What a lot of people don't see is the maintenance cost of a business owning PC's rather than Mac. Also, the ability to own a Mac for 7 years, still get regular software updates, AND be able to sell it for a much better return also brings the cost of ownership down in the long run. The Mac OS and hardware is obviously geared towards a certain demographic therefore the sales #'s of such should be disqualified from being able to be compared to PC sales IMO. Apple will never sell as many Macs as the other 62 companies sell PC's, that will always be a fact until Microsoft goes belly up.
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