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Apple Hits New High with 13.6% Share of U.S. PC Shipments in 3Q 2012, Lenovo Captures Worldwide Title

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Research firm Gartner today released its preliminary personal computer shipment data for the third quarter of 2012, providing a picture of just how weak market performance was during the quarter. While Apple actually experienced a year-over-year unit decline of 6.1% in the United States, other top vendors with the exception of Lenovo posted even steeper declines, giving the overall U.S. market a 13.8% decrease in shipments.

gartner_3Q12_us.png
Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q12 (Thousands of Units)​
Apple's share of the U.S. market rose to 13.6% for the third quarter on the strength of the back-to-school market, which is typically drives Apple's best performing quarter. The figure allowed Apple to maintain its comfortable hold on the third position in the U.S. market behind HP and Dell and marks Apple's best performance in recent years in beating out the company's 12.5% share in the third quarter of 2011.

gartner_3Q12_us_trend.png
Apple's U.S. Market Share Trend: 1Q06-3Q12 (Gartner)​
As usual, Gartner did not cover Apple's worldwide market share for the quarter, as the company does not rank among the top five vendors on a worldwide basis. PC shipments experienced an 8.3% year-over-year decline on a worldwide basis, with Lenovo's 9.8% growth enabling it to take the shipment title away from HP.

Update 2:04 PM: IDC has also released its estimates for the quarter, pegging Apple's share of the U.S. market at 12.5% on a shipment decline of 7%. According to IDC, the overall U.S. market shrank by 12.4%

On a worldwide basis, IDC estimates that HP was narrowly able to hold off Lenovo for the top spot.

Article Link: Apple Hits New High with 13.6% Share of U.S. PC Shipments in 3Q 2012, Lenovo Captures Worldwide Title
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/10/10/apple-hits-new-high-with-13-6-share-of-u-s-pc-shipments-in-3q-2012/
ironsienna

ironsienna

macrumors regular
Oct 28, 2010
215
0
Cool, they get richer and richer... So what when they don't spend these money on more research and development??? Where is the liquid metal? Where are the AR glasses? Where are the cutting edge 3D User Interfaces? Where are the curved glasses on desktop screens? Siri is still in Beta after a full year. 20% of the maps are covered by thick clouds and instead of spending these money on sending a satellite to space and take some really good photos they are sending apple store employers to tag the roads of their area. They milked the americans, they milked the europeans and they are milking now the chinese....

Is it apple getting tired or am I getting older?
 
G51989

G51989

macrumors 68030
Feb 25, 2012
2,530
10
NYC NY/Pittsburgh PA
* Waits for people to claim the death of Microsoft and PC OEMs and the post PC era is upon us ( ******** ) *

But really, its good to see the Mac might eventually work its way out of being totally irrelevant, as it has been for about 10 years now.

This might motivate to get its ass in gear to update the iMac, Mac Pro and Mini. New models would net even more sale.
 
S

swb1192

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2007
258
0
ironsienna said:
Cool, they get richer and richer...
...so what when they don't spend these money on more research and development??? Where is the liquid metal? Where are the AR glasses? Siri is still in Beta after a full year....

Is it apple getting tired or am I getting older?
Click to expand...

Apple is a very strategic investor with every single dollar, unlike some other companies (e.g. Google). They don't rush out and throw money and see what sticks - they think about what will do well and what they are interested in themselves.

A much different approach, and it has obviously been working quite well over the past decade+.
 
needfx

needfx

Suspended
Aug 10, 2010
3,931
4,247
macrumors apparently
a -6.1% is nothing compared to the rest of the negative percentages. moreover, just because apple isn't dominating the pc marketplace (yet), doesn't mean it is uninteresting and will immediately drop the imac, the mac pro, the macbook pro, whatever. just think of the investment that goes into mac os R&D. 3rd place against hp-dell, with their corporate reach, is not that bad after all. it's a steady place, fishing for migrating clients and offering a nice cozy ecosystem for all their devices.
 
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G

GuitarDTO

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2011
687
110
I love my Macbook Pro more than any computer, iDevice or gadget I have ever purchased. 31 years old here (So I've gone through lots of PC's/gadgets in the last 15 years). I am not surprised with this report.
 
thekev

thekev

macrumors 604
Aug 5, 2010
7,005
3,343
JustMartin said:
So am I going to be the first to point out they did this without new iMacs or Minis? :(
Click to expand...

Back to school purchases are likely to be highly skewed in favor of notebooks, given how much they're driven by college purchases.
 
keysofanxiety

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
It's crazy to think, really. Apple consider themselves an innovative company, and have crazy profits on their computers. Yet the iMac is outdated, the Mac Mini is outdated, and the Mac Pro is just horrendously -- terribly outdated.

There isn't an excuse. There really isn't. The chips are there, and other companies manage it. I hope I'm being naive, and I hope somebody can explain why they don't do it, because I'm simply in the dark with it.

If they managed to update their Pro line more consistently in the PowerPC days, when the CPU development was much less than Intel's, then why can't they do that now?

It's sad to see, because I feel it's hard to defend Apple as a company these days. The very people who put them into business, and who stuck with them when everybody else was laughing in the late '90s and early '00s, are the very people who Apple now ignore and put on the back burner.

I'm not one of those people; I'm a fairly recent convert. But still, my heart goes out to those who have essentially been screwed over.

Update the damn Macs, Apple. Pull your finger out, and show people you're not a company that caters to hipsters. /rant
 
ivladster

ivladster

macrumors 6502
Jun 29, 2007
480
9
Washington DC
ironsienna said:
Cool, they get richer and richer... So what when they don't spend these money on more research and development??? Where is the liquid metal? Where are the AR glasses? Where are the cutting edge 3D User Interfaces? Where are the curved glasses on desktop screens? Siri is still in Beta after a full year. 20% of the maps are covered by thick clouds and instead of spending these money on sending a satellite to space and take some really good photos they are sending apple store employers to tag the roads of their area. They milked the americans, they milked the europeans and they are milking now the chinese....

Is it apple getting tired or am I getting older?
Click to expand...

You realize that money don't solve these problems. People do. It's hard to find really good people and make them all work together.
 
nagromme

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
And they sold more iPads than any PC maker sold all of their PCs put together.

An iPad is a PC in most ways that matter: it replaces them for a great many people and a great many tasks! (For now, that sometimes means hanging on to an old “traditional” computer and simply not upgrading to a new one. Still a replacement sale that Apple gets and the PC makers don’t.)

That said, I’m very glad the “truck” business is still booming!

Also, in a year when the retina MacBook Pro came out, I can’t really see people thinking Apple has “abandoned” the Mac. Your pet model may be behind on numeric specs that few care about (though I myself do!) but new iMacs will come. The MacBook Air and retina MBP aren't the end of the new Macs, but the beginning.

Pro towers? They’re a niche worth worrying and wondering about, I agree! Apple will still cater to pros in future, but how? Will it always be big airboxes? Or will it be smaller machines that you can add a third-party Thunderbolt expansion chassis to? (Messy, but it may meet a small but important niche: people who need to load up on internal cards.)
 
xkmxkmxlmx

xkmxkmxlmx

macrumors 6502a
Apr 28, 2011
885
113
NOV said:
For 99% of the users the current machines are adequate. Even my 2008 MacPro which I use for intensive audio production still holds up very well.
Click to expand...

That's not the point. I know users that could get by on a 2006 iMac, easily. Apple wants the same price for something they released a year and a half ago. Which were pretty expensive upon release anyway. So to expect your customers to pay the same price for stuff that is outdated is a slap in the face.

And then there are people who would greatly benefit from more cpu and gpu power, solid state drives and usb 3. These are basic standards that come with almost any computer these days (even Apple's own laptop line has them).

So while you can adequately browse your facebook page with your 2008, don't assume that your situation is the norm, nor that there are other types of customers other than that majority, if it were the case.
 
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A

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
ironsienna said:
Cool, they get richer and richer... So what when they don't spend these money on more research and development??? Where is the liquid metal? Where are the AR glasses? Where are the cutting edge 3D User Interfaces? Where are the curved glasses on desktop screens? Siri is still in Beta after a full year. 20% of the maps are covered by thick clouds and instead of spending these money on sending a satellite to space and take some really good photos they are sending apple store employers to tag the roads of their area. They milked the americans, they milked the europeans and they are milking now the chinese....

Is it apple getting tired or am I getting older?
Click to expand...

Good grief...:rolleyes:

You get liquid metal, then what? You will complain that's there's nothing new after liquid metal. You get AR glasses, you complain why do we need the glasses? You get SIRI GM build, you complain it's not good enough. You get full maps that rival google's offering, you still complain not enough coverage.

You're not getting older, you're getting ADD. Name one company out there that has done what apple has done and given you top quality (albeit with some QC problems) devices? At the end of the day, these gadgets are just toys or tools for humans to help get them thru their day. 50 years ago, you have nothing like today and yet humans still functioned fine, and in fact much better than sticking our faces in our phone all day and night long and complaining about the dumbest things.
 
ivladster

ivladster

macrumors 6502
Jun 29, 2007
480
9
Washington DC
keysofanxiety said:
It's crazy to think, really. Apple consider themselves an innovative company, and have crazy profits on their computers. Yet the iMac is outdated, the Mac Mini is outdated, and the Mac Pro is just horrendously -- terribly outdated.

There isn't an excuse. There really isn't. The chips are there, and other companies manage it. I hope I'm being naive, and I hope somebody can explain why they don't do it, because I'm simply in the dark with it.

If they managed to update their Pro line more consistently in the PowerPC days, when the CPU development was much less than Intel's, then why can't they do that now?

It's sad to see, because I feel it's hard to defend Apple as a company these days. The very people who put them into business, and who stuck with them when everybody else was laughing in the late '90s and early '00s, are the very people who Apple now ignore and put on the back burner.

I'm not one of those people; I'm a fairly recent convert. But still, my heart goes out to those who have essentially been screwed over.

Update the damn Macs, Apple. Pull your finger out, and show people you're not a company that caters to hipsters. /rant
Click to expand...

Really? If Apple took your advice they can never grow to the size it is now. There are priorities. Apple's priorities are not PRO consumers anymore, it's just average consumer. They don't need Mac Pro, Mini or iMac. They need mobile devices, portable notebooks, media etc. It's so easy to see this.
 
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