Apple Mac shipments grew more than 110% year-over-year in Q1 2021
Apple's Mac is continuing to see a surge in growth, with the company shipping more than double the number of units in the first quarter of 2021 than the year-ago quarter.
Credit: Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider
The Cupertino tech giant shipped an estimated 6.7 million Mac models in Q1 2021, up from an estimated 3.1 million shipments in Q1 2020, according to new data from analysis firm IDC. The surge represents growth of 111.5% year-over-year.
Apple's share of the market also grew during that period, from 5.8% in the first quarter of 2020 to 8% in the first quarter of 2021. Apple clocked in fourth among the top PC vendors, behind Lenovo, HP, and Dell. None of those companies saw the same type of growth, however.
The entire PC market also saw a continued surge in growth in the first quarter. Global shipments of desktops, notebooks, and workstations grew 55.2% year-over-year.
According to IDC, the growth rate benefitted from the shortages faced in the first quarter of 2020 in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. While PC demand remains extremely high, the lack of shortages resulted in "unusually high" first quarter growth in 2021.
"Unfulfilled demand from the past year has carried forward into the first quarter and additional demand brought on by the pandemic has also continued to drive volume. However, the market continues to struggle with setbacks including component shortages and logistics issues, each of which has contributed to an increase in average selling prices," said Jitesh Ubrani, an IDC research manager.
The continued surge in the PC Market, as well as an increase in PC average selling prices (ASP), have been driven by growth in gaming, the need for higher performance notebooks for enterprise, and an increase in touchscreen device demand for the education market, IDC says.
Although ongoing component shortage issues is continuing to plague the industry, IDC Worldwide Mobile Device Tracker Vice President Ryan Reith says the outlook will remain upbeat for years to come.
"The ongoing shortages in the semiconductor space only further prolong the ability for vendors to refill inventory and fulfill orders to customers. We believe a fundamental shift has occurred around the PC, which will result in a more positive outlook for years to follow," Reith said.
Apple also saw strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2020, IDC data indicated at the time. The company shipped 7.3 million units, a 49.2% increase from 4.9 million units year-over-year.
The company also reported at its last earnings call that Mac shipment revenue had reached $8.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020, representing growth of 21%.
Credit: Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider
The Cupertino tech giant shipped an estimated 6.7 million Mac models in Q1 2021, up from an estimated 3.1 million shipments in Q1 2020, according to new data from analysis firm IDC. The surge represents growth of 111.5% year-over-year.
Apple's share of the market also grew during that period, from 5.8% in the first quarter of 2020 to 8% in the first quarter of 2021. Apple clocked in fourth among the top PC vendors, behind Lenovo, HP, and Dell. None of those companies saw the same type of growth, however.
The entire PC market also saw a continued surge in growth in the first quarter. Global shipments of desktops, notebooks, and workstations grew 55.2% year-over-year.
According to IDC, the growth rate benefitted from the shortages faced in the first quarter of 2020 in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. While PC demand remains extremely high, the lack of shortages resulted in "unusually high" first quarter growth in 2021.
"Unfulfilled demand from the past year has carried forward into the first quarter and additional demand brought on by the pandemic has also continued to drive volume. However, the market continues to struggle with setbacks including component shortages and logistics issues, each of which has contributed to an increase in average selling prices," said Jitesh Ubrani, an IDC research manager.
The continued surge in the PC Market, as well as an increase in PC average selling prices (ASP), have been driven by growth in gaming, the need for higher performance notebooks for enterprise, and an increase in touchscreen device demand for the education market, IDC says.
Although ongoing component shortage issues is continuing to plague the industry, IDC Worldwide Mobile Device Tracker Vice President Ryan Reith says the outlook will remain upbeat for years to come.
"The ongoing shortages in the semiconductor space only further prolong the ability for vendors to refill inventory and fulfill orders to customers. We believe a fundamental shift has occurred around the PC, which will result in a more positive outlook for years to follow," Reith said.
Apple also saw strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2020, IDC data indicated at the time. The company shipped 7.3 million units, a 49.2% increase from 4.9 million units year-over-year.
The company also reported at its last earnings call that Mac shipment revenue had reached $8.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020, representing growth of 21%.
Comments
in terms of sales, I doubt this crazy high growth rate can be maintained. Two main reasons:
1. When everyone is vaccinated I bet we see much less growth in tech spending
2. Apple has already upgraded about 90% of Mac unit volume to M1. While I personally am more interested in the iMac and Mac Pro, most folks buy the MBA, MBP13, or mini
The sales estimate is indeed not as good as the headlines make it appear. Q1/Q2 2020 was depressed by supply chain issues at the start of the pandemic. For Q1 2021, the supply chain issues seemed to be mostly re-ramped out, with the current supply issues noted, increased demand for at-home work and at-home play, and the best low end Macs in the lineup in forever. These peaks and valleys would have been smoothed over in an alternate reality without a pandemic.
Apple has a bit freedom to go for marketshare with Apple Silicon. An A14 based SKU: an M1 divided by 2 with 2 p-cores, 4 GPU cores, 8 GB RAM, and 1 TB controller could make for fanless $500 Mac mini and an $800 MBA. That's getting pretty close to "impulse" buy levels for a lot of folks. Really wonder what revenue-profit criteria they to make this decision.
No worries for Apple - the Macs will do brilliantly.
With Intel out of the way they are in much much better control of the release strategy and are able to slip new hardware into the market when it suits Apple, be it sales that slips up or putting straight future iron clads with 0s and 1s from Squaretown.
Ad 1. 😂 not gonna happen.
HP 21.4M, 21.4%
Apple 5.6M 8.0%
There's been significant improvements since then and Apple have been the driving force behind e.g screen quality, but the new shift of paradigm happened with the M1.
It should be noted that the 2008 MBA was a failure, while the 2010 MBA models finally arrived at the right features and price points to really become successful. It became so successful that the MBA form factor can been seen in a lot of laptop models now, making the laptop market a bit homogeneous.
To me, 3-4 lbs is a sensible limit. Whatever they can shave off below that I want filled with more Wh. Pretty sure there will be new MacBook designs soon, it made sense to run the first M1 series in old chassises.
Apple Silicon is a revolution in terms of the combo performance/graphics/battery, and they will probably be able to cut further down on power consumption by both sw/hw optimisation and more efficient screens. 2 thunderbolt ports needs to become 4 though.
Apple kept each ux where it was best suited, which is one of the reasons that the pads dominates now. The split between iPhone and iPad OS was a good idea. Make the best possible ux for the intended usage of the device.
Now, the Apple OS family is in far better shape and way better suited for combos than Windows thanks to the *nix concept and the work Apple has done. But one still will need differences to the ux of different form factors. If there's a merge between formfactors within the Apple sphere it's more likely that the continue that work with the pads as the basis, than morphing the MacBooks.
Shure, pads are preferable while commuting and laptops for portability, but for most heavy production work it will still be more productive thus preferable with a suitable big monitor and a proper keyboard for quite some time. I would surely like to get down from 4 to 3 devices, and the one I want to get rid of is the MacBook Pro. I would like to keep iPhone (mini), iPad (with keyboard) and Mac/Mac Mini/(iMac if they arrive with a 32+ screen). But the iPad ux and apps are not quite ready for that. Yet. It will.
Not necessarily. MS and others seamlessly switch between full laptop mode and tablet mode without compromising either. Apple could do the same. And, now that they are driving both with essentially the same processor, that becomes much more doable.
They will bake in functionality from one to the other, but my point is that you will not use the same ux. You may use "the same" os, but a different ux. Basically what Apple does now - with some major adjustments.
Everybody saw how it went when MS tried to use the same ux on all formfactors. I believe they would still have been In the business of selling MS mobiles (and pads) and doing well with them if they had left out laptops and desktops when tiling up.
Still some miles to go B4 Microsoft nails it.
The foldable concept is to use it like a laptop with the bottom half displaying virtual keyboards, trackpads and stylus; fold it open or flat, put it on a dock/stand vertically and use it like a desktop with external displays, keyboards and pointing devices; have it lay flat on table and use it like a large tablet with stylus, virtual keyboards and trackpads; connect it to an external display and use it as an input device; and, fold it 360° and use it in on a couch or bed like smaller tablet.
A model that is folded in half to a 13" 4:3 sized display will unfold along the long edge to a 18.5" 3:2 sized display. About 3 lb. Interesting to think about. It will need to have coating to make wiping fingerprints off super easy.
Anyways, not sure robust and durable display covers for foldables will beat AR glasses to the market. AR glasses that can display a virtual display with legible small font text? Game changer.