Apple Leads Global PC Growth With 21% Shipment Increase

[MacRumors]

Apple is believed to have seen a significant 21% increase in Mac shipments for the second quarter of 2024, the largest growth among global PC manufacturers during this period, as part of an industry-wide recovery.

According to a report by IDC, an industry research firm, worldwide shipments of desktops and laptops increased by 3% year-over-year for the quarter ending in June 2024. Apple and Acer led the growth among major manufacturers, with Acer showing a 14% increase in shipments. This marked the second consecutive quarter of growth for the PC industry, following a period of decline after the pandemic-driven surge in purchases during 2020 and 2021.

Ryan Reith, group vice president at IDC, noted that the combination of two consecutive quarters of growth, market excitement around AI-focused PCs, and a commercial refresh cycle, provided a much-needed boost to the PC market. AI-focused PCs are anticipated to drive a new wave of upgrades, though IDC reports that only about 3% of PCs shipped this year are said to be optimized for AI tasks. Apple's Mac lineup is likely to see further traction with the integration of Apple Intelligence, which positions the company to capitalize on the growing demand for AI-optimized PCs.

Apple's shipments jumped 20.8% from the second quarter of 2023, the largest rise among global PC makers. Acer followed with a 13.7% increase. Dell experienced a 2.4% decline in shipments, making it the only major company to see a decrease during this period. A new report from Gartner shows similar figures.

Despite weak demand in China, which held back overall results, excluding China, global shipments grew by more than 5%, according to IDC. Lenovo maintained the highest market share at nearly 23%, while HP saw a 1.8% increase from the previous year, holding 21% of the market.

Canalys, another market research firm, reported a slightly higher global PC market growth of 3.4% year-over-year, with total shipments reaching 62.8 million units in the second quarter of 2024. Apple secured the fourth position with 5.5 million units shipped, translating to a 9% market share, and marking a 6% increase from the same period last year. Lenovo led the market with 14.7 million units shipped, followed by HP with 13.7 million units, and Dell with 10.1 million units.

Article Link: Apple Leads Global PC Growth With 21% Shipment Increase

 

[Fuzzball84]

Market excitement around AI…. A lot of users are more concerned than excited

The only reason there is market excitement is that it’s the next big thing to push through a load of new PC sales and throw another load of e waste into landfill 😂

Growth above all else… until it’s too late.

 

[krspkbl]

The funny thing is if you want a PC that has AI capabilities then you build a PC with Nvidia GPU. Not buying a low powered ARM PC/laptop.

AI will excite some but this is just a temporary boost (not AI itself). Most people still prefer their phone/tablet. It's good that laptops are a focus here but it's not going to last.

A lot of people underestimate just how demanding true AI is. You want to do AI stuff? You need 32-64GB RAM and as much VRAM as you can afford and I'm talking 24, 48, 96GB .... maybe even 100GB+ lol. You need a good x86 processor too. Last time I checked, Apple still starts at 8GB unified memory lol. You can do basically nothing with 8GB across cpu/gpu.

If Apple wants to continue their success they need to start increasing memory specs. 16GB would be a good start. I'd say 24-32GB ideally and even that seems like little. But of course Apple will not give you true AI.

 

[Fuzzball84]

The funny thing is if you want a PC that has AI capabilities then you build a PC with Nvidia GPU. Not buying a low powered ARM PC/laptop.

AI will excite some but this is just a temporary boost (not AI itself). Most people still prefer their phone/tablet. It's good that laptops are a focus here but it's not going to last.

A lot of people underestimate just how demanding true AI is. You want to do AI stuff? You need 32-64GB RAM and as much VRAM as you can afford and I'm talking 24, 48, 96GB .... maybe even 100GB+ lol. You need a good x86 processor too. Last time I checked, Apple still starts at 8GB unified memory lol. You can do basically nothing with 8GB across cpu/gpu.

I think the problem has been that AI has become a term that’s so hard to pin down because it encompasses a huge variety and various levels of technology. It’s a catch all term. Marketing. Hardcore AI is indeed very power and memory intensive.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

The funny thing is if you want a PC that has AI capabilities then you build a PC with Nvidia GPU. Not buying a low powered ARM PC/laptop.

AI will excite some but this is just a temporary boost (not AI itself). Most people still prefer their phone/tablet. It's good that laptops are a focus here but it's not going to last.

A lot of people underestimate just how demanding true AI is. You want to do AI stuff? You need 32-64GB RAM and as much VRAM as you can afford and I'm talking 24, 48, 96GB .... maybe even 100GB+ lol. You need a good x86 processor too. Last time I checked, Apple still starts at 8GB unified memory lol. You can do basically nothing with 8GB across cpu/gpu.

If Apple wants to continue their success they need to start increasing memory specs. 16GB would be a good start. I'd say 24-32GB ideally and even that seems like little. But of course Apple will not give you true AI.

For the general public, that cares about AI, they don't care if it's on-device or a service.

 

[krspkbl]

I think the problem has been that AI has become a term that’s so hard to pin down because it encompasses a huge variety and various levels of technology. It’s a catch all term. Marketing. Hardcore AI is indeed very power and memory intensive.

Totally true.

You want to do stuff like Stable Diffusion or any kind of audio work then you need a lot of memory (vram). The kind of "AI" apple is selling is just weak stuff but still they need to upgrade their RAM and storage specs across all their products if they want to be taken seriously with AI.

 

[krspkbl]

For the general public, that cares about AI, they don't care if it's on-device or a service.

True to a point. It seems most people here want on device processing instead of having to use something like the ChatGPT integration (which calls to a server). You want on device then you need to beef up all your specs... cpu, ram, storage, gpu, battery performance.

 

[Quasselstripper]

It’s interesting. The market for computers is so much smaller than the smartphone market which totally makes sense.

 

[Darren.h]

who still buys an acer pc? and they are up 13 percent. wow

Lenovo or Dell is a much better pc.

 

[dannyyankou]

I got a 14-inch M3 Pro Macbook Pro a couple of weeks ago and it's the best computer I've ever had. I mean every new computer is the best ever, but the leap compared to my 15 inch Intel MBP… the battery life is astonishing. And I downsized!

 

[vertsix]

I mostly switched to macOS this year after being 18 years with Windows and - while adapting was a bit frustrating at first - I am so happy with my decision.

I am done using hot, inefficient, loud, slow Windows laptops. I can't abandon Windows entirely with my workflow, but having a MacBook and a Windows desktop seems to be the best combination.

The efficiency difference of MacBooks compared to most Windows laptops is shocking, they're on a league of their own.

 

[Obioban]

The funny thing is if you want a PC that has AI capabilities then you build a PC with Nvidia GPU. Not buying a low powered ARM PC/laptop.

AI will excite some but this is just a temporary boost (not AI itself). Most people still prefer their phone/tablet. It's good that laptops are a focus here but it's not going to last.

A lot of people underestimate just how demanding true AI is. You want to do AI stuff? You need 32-64GB RAM and as much VRAM as you can afford and I'm talking 24, 48, 96GB .... maybe even 100GB+ lol. You need a good x86 processor too. Last time I checked, Apple still starts at 8GB unified memory lol. You can do basically nothing with 8GB across cpu/gpu.

If Apple wants to continue their success they need to start increasing memory specs. 16GB would be a good start. I'd say 24-32GB ideally and even that seems like little. But of course Apple will not give you true AI.

What you're talking about is hardware necessary to build a model-- much less hardware is required to run/use a model. Very few people are building models, much less routinely.

That said, Apple's unified memory is largely a strength for building models. There is not a lot of computers out there with 24+ gb of VRAM on their GPU. Easily <1% of computers sold. EVERY mac that has that much ram has that much VRAM. Yes, the base Macs start at 8gb, but nobody training a model is going to (or should) buy one of those. If you professionally build models day in, day out, yes, you should specifically build a computer for that purpose (optimize for CUDA cores). For "normal" people, that rarely do so-- Apple's setup gets you a long way there, for a much lower price, and does so for a wide swath of their product line.

The average price of a new PC is $632, from the latest data I can find. That is the market Apple is competing with, with the 8gb Macs. Which computer do you think would do AI better?

No benefit to an x86 processor. If anything, the opposite-- "Apple intelligence" is running on every Apple computer since the move off x86 to ARM in 2020. Similarly, Microsofts "Copilot+" requirements, thus far, are only met by 2024+ ARM processors. So, if anything, thus far both Microsoft's and Apple's AI models can only run on ARM based PCs. That'll likely change on the PC side, but it certainly doesn't imply that x86 is the stronger starting point for running AI models

 

[progx]

who still buys an acer pc? and they are up 13 percent. wow

Lenovo or Dell is a much better pc.

Acer wins on the low price SKUs. However, they do have board appeal. I wouldn’t buy them, but clearly businesses and customers want their products.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Acer wins on the low price SKUs. However, they do have board appeal. I wouldn’t buy them, but clearly businesses and customers want their products.

I don't know any businesses that buy them, but they are very common with students that don't have a MacBook.

I see Acer laptops often enough with residents and interns. The rest have MacBook Airs.

 

[Analog Kid]

I wonder how much of this is because Qualcomm and Microsoft keep using Apple as their yardstick? If everyone else is just trying to beat Apple, why not just buy an Apple?

 

[eltoslightfoot]

who still buys an acer pc? and they are up 13 percent. wow

Lenovo or Dell is a much better pc.

Depends. When you look at gaming laptops, Lenovo has taken a dive on reliability rankings lately. I know when I was looking, I ended up with a refurbed Acer Predator Helios Neo 16” and it has been great!

 

[delsoul]

Contrary to Microsoft’s misleading ads they used to run (one is a PC, one is an Apple)…I’m glad to see the headlines getting it right. Macs, MacBooks, etc are PC’s. Pretty amazing numbers to see that it grew that much!

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Contrary to Microsoft’s misleading ads they used to run (one is a PC, one is an Apple)…I’m glad to see the headlines getting it right. Macs, MacBooks, etc are PC’s. Pretty amazing numbers to see that it grew that much!

The PC vs other argument originated back in the early 80s with all the manufactures (Apple, Tandy, TI, Commodore, Atari, other, etc.) being called PCs, but IBM wanted their machines to be PC.

Colloquially, IBM won.

 

[Contact_Feanor]

The funny thing is if you want a PC that has AI capabilities then you build a PC with Nvidia GPU. Not buying a low powered ARM PC/laptop.

AI will excite some but this is just a temporary boost (not AI itself). Most people still prefer their phone/tablet. It's good that laptops are a focus here but it's not going to last.

A lot of people underestimate just how demanding true AI is. You want to do AI stuff? You need 32-64GB RAM and as much VRAM as you can afford and I'm talking 24, 48, 96GB .... maybe even 100GB+ lol. You need a good x86 processor too. Last time I checked, Apple still starts at 8GB unified memory lol. You can do basically nothing with 8GB across cpu/gpu.

If Apple wants to continue their success they need to start increasing memory specs. 16GB would be a good start. I'd say 24-32GB ideally and even that seems like little. But of course Apple will not give you true AI.

I don't know what your idea is of "real" AI, but to me this sounds a bit like a "no true scotsmen" argument. I have a masters degree in AI (don't work in the field anymore) but back in the day as a student (and this was last decade, not a hundred years ago) we had to build and run models on our laptops. Both rudimentary language models but also more complex things (like models to make robot wheelchairs navigate unknown environments including traffic based on instructions from noisy EEG readings). All of that was "real" AI, yet almost none of it required more than 16GB of RAM. Did some things take a long time to build? Yes. Were they unusable once built? Nope. Not even on an 8GB RAM laptop.

It's funny how you talk about "REAL" AI, then give the example of Stable Diffusion, something that will run on any modern MacBook, even the ones with a humble M1 soc. To give another real-world example, the autopilot computer in a Tesla got bumped to its 4th iteration last year. The HW4 Autopilot has double the RAM of the previous version: it went from 8 to 16GB. And that's an AI system that is literally in charge of people's lives.

I think A) you need to reconsider what "real" (as opposed to what?) AI is, and B) consider that no, for most REAL AI, you don't need the highest specs, unless you want to do some very data-intensive things within a relatively short time.

 

[Contact_Feanor]

The PC vs other argument originated back in the early 80s with all the manufactures (Apple, Tandy, TI, Commodore, Atari, other, etc.) being called PCs, but IBM wanted their machines to be PC.

Colloquially, IBM won.

I think the others were called "home computers" versus IBM PC Compatible (or "pc")

 

[jdb8167]

I think the others were called "home computers" versus IBM PC Compatible (or "pc")

PC stood for personal computer. Both terms were used.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

I think the others were called "home computers" versus IBM PC Compatible (or "pc")

It wasn't just for home computers, it was in business too. It was a big argument back then.

Home computer was a common term, too.

Edit: Here is a Radio Shack ad from '77 calling their computer a Personal Computer, and a Microcomputer, and a little computer.

 

[julesme]

IDC estimates Apple shipments increased 21% compared to the prior year. Canalys estimates Apple shipments increased only 6%.

Which one is it? Since both figures are only estimates, the article should address the disparity instead of plastering “21% growth” into the headline as if it’s a fact.

 

[stinksroundhere]

The funny thing is if you want a PC that has AI capabilities then you build a PC with Nvidia GPU. Not buying a low powered ARM PC/laptop.

An RTX 4090 has 24GB ram which won't run models bigger than 20GB.

An M3 Max 48GB will run 35GB size models fine and consume about 8 times less energy than a PC with a 4090. The highest end Macs can offer well over 128GB to video memory.

If you want that much VRAM with a PC you'll need to string a bunch of very expensive GPUs together and spend a mother load on electricity.

You need a good x86 processor too.

Nonsense.

Last time I checked, Apple still starts at 8GB unified memory lol. You can do basically nothing with 8GB across cpu/gpu.

That's a starter office PC/Mac. It's not for any advanced AI tasks.

If you're going to act like an expert then get facts right.

 

[rp2011]

Apple sells only a fraction of units compared to just Lenovo by itself at 5.5 million compared to 14.7 million. The optimist might say that Apple has a lot of growth potential but now without the advantages of the M series chips compared to Intel as a differentiator, that advantage is lost. And next year all of the current Qualcomm laptops will see slashed prices as new models arrive. I see Apple going back to its previous lower market share going forward without more innovation to keep consumers interested now that they have better competition.