Apple Halted M2 Chip Production in January Amid 'Plummeting' Mac Sales

[dmr727]

None of this is specific to Apple - they just avoided the worst of the PC decline by getting everyone excited by Apple Silicon. Now that a lot of folks have transitioned, they're stuck in the some doldrums as everyone else.

I was looking at premium PC laptops the other day, and Dell had a deal on an XPS with last generation 12th gen Intel and RTX hardware, and it was $1000 less than the identical laptop with 13th gen and the latest from Nvidia. I'm sure there are people out there that really need the latest hardware, but I just can't justify paying that kind of premium for what I consider to be a very incremental upgrade. And I'm not a young guy anymore - I'm at a point in my life where that extra grand is irrelevant - but why spend the money for no reason?

The whole industry has this problem - it's not just Apple. But their transition to M1 allowed them to kick the can down the road and the reality of the PC industry is just now catching up.

 

[IsaacM]

I’m not shocked. In Europe, M2 MBA is almost 500eur more expensive than M1 MBA.

The difference in speed is barely noticeable, and if you go for the base model it’s even slower because they downgraded the RAM.

 

[rwalle]

Is this not merely a case of exceptional sales of the M1, following the debacle that was the touchbar Intel laptops — coupled with the M1 iteration being so good, that fewer see the need to upgrade to the M2 versions?

Personally, it will be a long time before I find a need to upgrade my 14” M1 MBP. Surely my situation is not unique?

That's the next level of mental gymnastics.

Come on, it's just the downturn in the laptop market as we have seen elsewhere, as simple as that.

 

[Marbles1]

I think it was on Unbox Therapy where the guys were talking about what people are looking for in a slow economy, and that's value for money. Performance-wise, the Air can do most tasks outside of demanding Pro workflows. Even if folks do some creative projects every now and then, the Air is enough - and in some ways that competitive advantage of Apple Silicon is a shot to the foot, most folks just don't need a MacBook Pro anymore.

One thing I will say, is the loss of Bootcamp, coupled with growing interest in gaming on PC - even doing a build - I think this time around Mac folks are actually looking at the PC as a 'Pro' purchase - or at least, that's where that money is going, because the Mac can no longer scratch that itch for tinkerers and folks who like to dual boot. A lot of Mac users have become used to being able to dual boot for what feels like decades.

I know for me that's the case - the Air is a fantastic everyday laptop, great plugged into a screen and covers a lot of bases, but for gaming & other Pro workflows, for hobbiest computing, it's not hard to be looking elsewhere.

Exactly this.

Toward the end of the intel era, I bought a decent spec MacBook Pro. Next time, I see no reason to. I have a steam deck or I could buy a decent spec PC to play games, emulate systems that the Mac can't or where the Mac gets fewer updates / options due to simply having a smaller market, or to run windows specific programs going back decades without worrying about emulation or compatibility layers.

And for Mac it looks like I'll just by the lowest end MacBook. If Macs are no longer going to even _try_ having PC compatibility then the big expansion which came with the move to intel (and which led to an expansion in Mac software releases games and professiona stuff), then I see no reason in having a high spec Mac. I can't install windows on it to run natively, I can't guaranteed compatibility with bootcamp or even parallels, so why bother?

 

[Ryox]

They bumped the price £3-400 for no reason here in the uk, Its a no brainer to just buy a refurb M1

 

[Realityck]

Plummeting is never a good word when it comes to mac sales.

Just used to attract clicks like any other article looking at the last of the Covid 19 manufacturing issues. As stated the entire industry was effected, and as bad as it was Apple did better than most by using more diverse arrangements for manufacturing. Perhaps this is why we expect so much more now thru WWDC 2023 with new hardware.

 

[leemkule]

I’m not shocked. In Europe, M2 MBA is almost 500eur more expensive than M1 MBA.

The difference in speed is barely noticeable, and if you go for the base model it’s even slower because they downgraded the RAM.

Yeah, seems largely ignored on this forum as it's obvious USA-centric; but the absolutely enormous price hikes in Europe are enough to put anyone off.

 

[StellarVixen]

Expensive laptops and desktops wont flourish in this economy we are in today. Especially if competition can offer near level of performance for much less money.

And rarely anyone will care about build quality of Macs or stability and reliability of Mac OS enough to justify spending more. In times like these, people are ready to compromise more.

 

[johannnn]

I have an M1 Air and M1 iMac, and it’s the first computers I’ve owned since I started using macOS with 10.4 Tiger, where I actually think the performance is “good enough”. Everything is so snappy compared to the Intel computers I had before. I definitely think the Apple Silicon computers are almost like the iPad Pro in the sense that you don’t need to upgrade as often as you did before.

 

[Turribeach]

I think it was on Unbox Therapy where the guys were talking about what people are looking for in a slow economy, and that's value for money. Performance-wise, the Air can do most tasks outside of demanding Pro workflows. Even if folks do some creative projects every now and then, the Air is enough - and in some ways that competitive advantage of Apple Silicon is a shot to the foot, most folks just don't need a MacBook Pro anymore.

One thing I will say, is the loss of Bootcamp, coupled with growing interest in gaming on PC - even doing a build - I think this time around Mac folks are actually looking at the PC as a 'Pro' purchase - or at least, that's where that money is going, because the Mac can no longer scratch that itch for tinkerers and folks who like to dual boot. A lot of Mac users have become used to being able to dual boot for what feels like decades.

I know for me that's the case - the Air is a fantastic everyday laptop, great plugged into a screen and covers a lot of bases, but for gaming & other Pro workflows, for hobbiest computing, it's not hard to be looking elsewhere.

Bootcamp? What a load of rubbish. I have Windows 11 on Parallels running Office 2019 on my M2 MacMini. No issues at all. Who cares about clumsy Bootcamp? No one who needs windows apps would want to boot on Windows. It’s the apps they want. And Parallels in Coherence mode is way better option. So pretty sure you don’t use any Windows apps on MacOS.

 

[Realityck]

Expensive laptops and desktops wont flourish in this economy we are in today. Especially if competition can offer near level of performance for much less money.

And rarely anyone will care about build quality of Macs or stability and reliability of Mac OS enough to justify spending more. In times like these, people are ready to compromise more.

They are actually better buys than in the past. A 1984 Mac was $2499 USD, a Mac 2 was $5500 you can on and on with models into the 21st century but recent Mac Models that are AS platform based are both economically, and technically better buys then past Mac Models. Flourish is not a problem.

 

[bsolar]

Are you expecting like a new "new" MacBook Pro every year or something? It's perfectly normal for OEMs to release major hardware revisions every few years with minor increments in between.

It's not realistic to expect that, but the irrealistic expectation was from Apple first, not the user. Apple expected better sales but didn't deliver upgrades compelling enough to drive them.

 

[Prabas]

Sales are plummeting because these Macs are the most affordable laptops ever and they are packed with ground-breaking features and specs like lots of RAM, large SSDs, great OLED screens with high-refresh rates, every year they offer something incredible compared to previous year and the need to upgrade is insane!

 

[wanha]

It seems pretty clear this is the result of multiple factors:

1. The PC market is contracting.

2. The M1 Macs catered to a lot of pent up demand, which is why it is simply not there anymore in the same way for M2.

3. Macs have continued to get more and more expensive. No way non-professionals upgrade every 2 or even 3 years now. I've had the M2 MBA for about 8 months now and barring unexpected problems, I plan on using it for 5+ years.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

Appleinsider rumor score is a great addition. Macrumors, Appleinsider, 9 to 5 max etc they know best so why not offer their expertise.

 

[Marshall73]

It's not realistic to expect that, but the irrealistic expectation was from Apple first, not the user. Apple expected better sales but didn't deliver upgrades compelling enough to drive them.

Apple sells a vast amount of units to business customers. As the economy contracts businesses look at eking out another year on hardware that is “good enough”. One Apple drop Intel from macOS support then they will see a spike in sales. PC vendors are in a similar situation while they wait for the end of windows 10 in 2025.

 

[Seanm87]

Not a surprise.

M1 was huge and a game changer. A lot of people rushed out to get one including me.

So that’s all those customers set for another 5 years or so. A minor spec bump is not going to sustain those sales.

 

[playtech1]

In a vacuum the M2 Macs are a solid if unspectacular upgrade to the M1 equivalents, but I think the price increases made them feel like you were getting less bang for your buck than the models they replaced.

Launching significantly more expensive (a UK perspective here) machines with marginal upgrades in a recession was a bold move...

 

[Phaseangle]

Maybe it is time for Apple, Inc. to separate their divisions into independent corporate entities, i.e. Apple Hardware Inc, Apple Software Inc, Apple Cloud Inc, Apple Entertainment, Apple Everything Else Inc.

That would be a very bad idea. Apples integration is it's biggest strength

 

[matt_and_187_like_this]

The M2 is basically a M1+
Base models still only come with 8GB RAM
Base models have slower SSD speed
Price increase in most countries
All of that after Covid where lots of people already purchased new machines

Let's hope this grounds Timmy and we'll see a more reasonable value offering with the new Macbooks.

 

[Warped9]

There was a general slowdown everywhere. Apple wasn’t the only one affected.

As nice as it is the M2 Air just isn’t a significant upgrade over the M1 Air for the extra mony, particularly when the the M1 Air is sill available. If they had discontinued the M1 Air when the M2 was introduced (at the same price or close to it) it could have been different.

And as already stated upthread the M1 was a significant upgrade over what came before while the M2 wasn’t. When money is tight and you already have something good why spend for only a marginal upgrade?

The news bolsters why M3 Macs are likely to arrive sooner rather than later.

 

[timber]

The are a lot of factors going on.

The M1 was exceptional and covered a lot of demand that was holding, a lot of demand got served during the lock downs, the M2 while pretty good isn't earth shattering, prices (and obscured costs like memory upgrade) are constantly going up and everyone seems to be considering spending more carefully.

 

[ppglove]

I live in Poland. Strong dollar, plus inflation and apple pricing are main blockers for me. I need to upgrade my 2016 15inch MacBook Pro - which at that time was crazy expensive but still good value given that I am replacing them no earlier than after 5 years. Currently, decent MacBook Pro configuration is 2x more expensive in my home currency while inflation has eaten up my purchasing power by 50% in recent years.

 

[seanmills1020]

I am content on waiting for the M5.

 

[jaehaerys48]

That's not really what happened last year. Apple's sales declined the least for the major computer companies.

Exactly. People are way overthinking things. Economic uncertainty + end of lockdown buying means lower sales.

Too expensive. UK pricing is obscene. Anecdotally I know plenty of people who've simply been priced out of Macs and bought PC's instead. Apple got far, far too greedy.

Apple's sales fell by less than Dell, Lenovo, Asus, Acer (the king of budget PCs), etc last year.

Mac prices are high but consistent. A base iMac today costs about as much as a base iMac in 1998. A base M1 MBA costs about as much as my first MacBook - one of the old polycarbonate ones - back in 2007. Factoring in inflation they've become more affordable (though still pricey) with time.

The strong dollar has messed with foreign markets, but again, cheap PC sales fell by a ton so this isn't really the only factor.