Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
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.
21% increase in shipments, 6% increase in market share
 
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.
I’ve seen businesses and retail with them. Granted Lenovo and Dell are frequent for me, but I have seen them in offices. Big corporations too.
 
Recently pulled the trigger on a base M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14 in Space Black. My M1 MBA still runs like new, but I wanted MacBook Pro for years, especially the Apple silicon models, and man this thing is impressive in every way. Keyboard, trackpad, display, speakers, ports, aesthetics, etc. Apple Silicon truly is a game changer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: victorvictoria
An RTX 4090 has 24GB ram which won't run models bigger than 20GB.

Anyone trying to run a model that large likely has the resources to buy a Quadro instead. An RTX 4090 is simply the wrong tool for the job.

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.

Sure, but how long are you going to be waiting for inference to complete on that M3 Max? Most people are more concerned about getting to the result quickly, rather than efficiently.

Regardless, the Apple laptops are an excellent value for money. I was almost caught buying an M3 machine before the iPad event.
 
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.
Ok, but the vast majority of Mac buyers don't buy Mac for Apple Silicon. They buy them for the brand, the ease of use, familiarity, the looks, etc. Since M1, any MacBook model will have outstanding power and efficiency, with the added bonus of Apple's hardware/software integration.
 
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.

If this gets the floor of PC specs up, it will be a good side effect.

With the PC race to the bottom, a lot of computers might as well go straight from the factory to the landfill. Junk that should never have been made.
 
  • Like
Reactions: trusso
21% increase in shipments, 6% increase in market share

No, that’s incorrect. The Canalys report says that Apple shipped 5.510 million units in Q2 2024 and shipped 5.198 million in Q2 2023, reflecting a 6% increase in units, not market share (link to report is in article above).
 
  • Like
Reactions: DEMinSoCAL
No, that’s incorrect. The Canalys report says that Apple shipped 5.510 million units in Q2 2024 and shipped 5.198 million in Q2 2023, reflecting a 6% increase in units, not market share (link to report is in article above).
My bad, was just interpreting what MR wrote, not looking at the actual reports.

Looking at the reports, both seem to agree the ballpark figure for this year (5.5-5.7M), but have different figures for last year - IDC 4.7M, Canalys 5.2 - think that's why the % increases are different, so not sure which one is accurate for last year... Gartner seems to be more in line with IDC...
 
  • Like
Reactions: julesme


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.

apple-silicon-mac-lineup-wwdc-2022-feature-purple.jpg

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
As a former Dell employee I wonder why their sales dropped? Dell is a lot more diversified now then it was in the early 2000s so they’re less dependent on PC sales but intrigued nonetheless.
 
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.
I’m more confident Qualcomm is able to dethrone apples M4 or M5 with their next offerings than Apple keeping the crown. And seeing that most hardware makers sell their laptops starting with at least 16gb RAM, larger ssd’s and the tandem oled displays with touch… it will be a hard sell for Apple the coming months.

Seeing the new surface laptops from Microsoft and their reviews (excellent). Apple will lose the business market once again. Numbers will show next quarter.
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: rbgaynor
I’m more confident Qualcomm is able to dethrone apples M4 or M5 with their next offerings than Apple keeping the crown. And seeing that most hardware makers sell their laptops starting with at least 16gb RAM, larger ssd’s and the tandem oled displays with touch… it will be a hard sell for Apple the coming months.

If not Qualcomm, there's still everyone else. The x64 guys are radically rearchitecting their mobile offerings, while the ARM space is heating up with AMD, Mediatek, and Nvidia wanting to get into the PC CPU space. Even Intel swallowed their pride and is using TSMC for lithography.

M4 comes out ahead for now, but who's to say what the marketplace looks like when M5 rolls around.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rp2011 and 9081094
Windows 11 - the best argument to buy a Mac.
I don't know if you meant that sarcastically or not, but I think there's merit in it-- I doubt many people actually choose between Apple and Windows based computers based on the processors.
 
If this gets the floor of PC specs up, it will be a good side effect.

With the PC race to the bottom, a lot of computers might as well go straight from the factory to the landfill. Junk that should never have been made.
I think it will always be the case that many manufacturers will make devices that are just good enough. Apple is not immune from this either…

Look at the base RAM spec, it’s the only thing that limits longevity in a significant way for many of their devices. And it is not upgradable.

So you end up with otherwise fast hardware hobbled by non upgradable ram. Mac, MacBooks, tablets and even iPhones. It’s the one component except for maybe storage that they really skimp on.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CarAnalogy
I think it will always be the case that many manufacturers will make devices that are just good enough. Apple is not immune from this either…

Look at the base RAM spec, it’s the only thing that limits longevity in a significant way for many of their devices. And it is not upgradable.

So you end up with otherwise fast hardware hobbled by non upgradable ram. Mac, MacBooks, tablets and even iPhones. It’s the one component except for maybe storage that they really skimp on.

Exactly. If this kicks their butts out of that mindset, great.

Maybe it will at least get it moving in the right direction.

But what Apple tends to do is just raise the spec floor and performance floor at the same time. So even with more hardware we won’t actually get better performance, still the same baseline with the extra RAM constantly full of LLM.

Not a huge deal on the Apple side since performance is already good. But for the rest of the PC industry maybe having a feature people are aware of that really does require good hardware can be a good thing.
 
I’m more confident Qualcomm is able to dethrone apples M4 or M5 with their next offerings than Apple keeping the crown. And seeing that most hardware makers sell their laptops starting with at least 16gb RAM, larger ssd’s and the tandem oled displays with touch… it will be a hard sell for Apple the coming months.

Seeing the new surface laptops from Microsoft and their reviews (excellent). Apple will lose the business market once again. Numbers will show next quarter.
I hope not, but it would be all Apple’s fault. They had chip designers fighting to be heard and eager to take their chips further to the server space. They chased them away to Qualcomm and created their own problem. Not only that, now they are behind in the server space when they could have been ahead.This is all on Apple and the outcome of being shortsighted and complacent.
 
  • Love
Reactions: 9081094
Ok, but the vast majority of Mac buyers don't buy Mac for Apple Silicon. They buy them for the brand, the ease of use, familiarity, the looks, etc. Since M1, any MacBook model will have outstanding power and efficiency, with the added bonus of Apple's hardware/software integration.
True, but for me, I would have never even considered a Mac if they were still on Intel. I only finally considered a Mac after loving my iPad Pro and how much more responsive it was than even my desktop Windows machine. A lot of folks jumped to the Mac solely because of the M1
 
Recently pulled the trigger on a base M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14 in Space Black. My M1 MBA still runs like new, but I wanted MacBook Pro for years, especially the Apple silicon models, and man this thing is impressive in every way. Keyboard, trackpad, display, speakers, ports, aesthetics, etc. Apple Silicon truly is a game changer.
Have you noticed that the Apple silicon laptops have a better battery life, too? Mine sure does!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.