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Apple's Mac Shipments Down in Q3 2017 Amid Continuing PC Market Decline

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Amid an ongoing decline in worldwide PC shipments, Apple's Mac shipments also experienced a decline in the third quarter of 2017 according to new PC shipping estimates shared this afternoon by Gartner. In Q3 2017, Apple shipped an estimated 4.6 million Macs worldwide, down from 4.89 million in the year-ago quarter, marking a 5.6 percent decline in growth.

Apple's market share for the quarter comes in at 6.9 percent, down from 7 percent in the third quarter of 2016. Apple was ranked the number five worldwide PC vendor after HP, Lenovo, Dell, and Asus. Apple was also the number five worldwide PC vendor in 3Q 2016, but the company has dropped from number four since Q2 2017.

gartner_3Q17_global.jpg
Gartner's Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q17 (Thousands of Units)​

Aside from HP, all PC vendors saw a drop in shipments. HP shipped an estimated 14.6 million PCs during the quarter for 4.4 growth and 21.8 percent market share, while Lenovo shipped an estimated 14.4 million PCs for 21.4 percent market share. Dell shipped an estimated 10 million PCs for 15.2 percent market share, while Asus shipped 4.9 million PCs for 7.7 percent market share. Acer trailed after Apple with 4.3 million PCs shipped and 6.5 percent market share.

According to Gartner, ongoing DRAM shortages worsened during the third quarter of 2017, impacting sales and leading to an overall PC shipment decline of 3.6 percent. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 67 million across vendors, down from 69.5 million in Q3 2016, marking 12 consecutive quarters of declining PC shipments.
"The component price hike impacted the consumer PC market as most vendors generally pass the price hike on to consumers, rather than absorbing the cost themselves," Ms. Kitagawa said. "We expect the DRAM shortage to continue to the end of 2018, but it will not be reflected in the final PC prices immediately."
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Apple's U.S. numbers mirror its worldwide numbers. In the United States, Apple shipped an estimated 1.9 million Macs, a 7.6 percent decline from the 2 million shipped in Q3 2016.

gartner_3Q17_us.jpg
Gartner's Preliminary U.S. Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q17 (Thousands of Units)​

U.S. PC shipments totaled 14.7 million units during the quarter, down from 16.4 million for an overall decline of 10.3 percent. Apple was ranked the number three PC vendor in the United States with 12.8 percent market share. HP and Dell both beat out Apple with shipments of 4.7 and 3.8 million PCs, respectively.

gartner_3Q17_trend.jpg
Apple's Market Share Trend: 1Q06-3Q17 (Gartner)​

IDC also released its own shipment estimates this afternoon, noting a smaller 0.5 percent decline in overall worldwide PC shipments. IDC's worldwide shipping estimates are quite a bit different than Gartner's this quarter, with IDC estimating worldwide Mac shipments of 4.9 million, up slightly from 4.89 million in the year-ago quarter for a growth increase of 0.3 percent.

IDC ranks Apple as the number four PC vendor, above ASUS and below HP, Lenovo, and Dell. IDC and Gartner's data often varies due to the different ways each firm makes its shipment calculations.

It's important to note that data from Gartner and IDC is preliminary and the numbers can shift, sometimes dramatically and sometimes less so. Last year, for example, Gartner estimated shipments of 4.95 million Macs, but the actual number was 4.89 million.

Apple last refreshed its Mac notebook and iMac lineup in June of 2017, and the company has plans to release a new iMac Pro in December, which could lead to an uptick in shipments if it proves popular with pro users.

Article Link: Apple's Mac Shipments Down in Q3 2017 Amid Continuing PC Market Decline
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/10/apple-mac-shipments-down-q3-2017/
Next year should be a different story, although I guess that depends on the release.
 
One thing these do not take into account is the large market for upgrading and custom built computers prevalent in the PC industry.

This does not account for those users who replace their own gpus or CPU’s or do custom kits. The gaming pc industry is worth billions. And as off the shelf computers get more expensive for “design”, many more people looking for workstation class, or gaming class hardware will by components and build out their own.

None of that is accounted in these numbers.

As prices in prebuilt continue to rise, the home built will likely see a resurgence. Especially since it’s really the only way to get high end desktops these days.


Example you can look up. Ryzen sales are brand new. There are virtually no prebuilt selling them yet. However they have sold millions already.

This means millions of new desktops have been built on the Ryzen platform alone that were not prebuilt computers. None of those computers are in this chart.
 
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Shocked? Apple took so long to update the range and when the did, increased the prices .

Maybe , maybe just , the current offering do not represent value for money ?

I bought a 2015 refurb due to the poor value for money in the UK in the new range
 
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We've heard the words "PC market is in decline" for years now. Does anyone know which quarter was its all-time high? I honestly don't remember what the market used to be.
 
v0lume4 said:
Maybe I'm totally remembering wrong -- isn't this the first YoY decline in Mac shipments in a lonnng time?

Not to jump to conclusion -- but IF it is, then you really have to look at the price/functionality of the new MBP's and wonder, "Hmm."
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The new ones are definitely worse. I bought the 2015 rMBP instead of going for fewer ports and basically the same components for a greater price. And the only reason I bought it is my old laptop broke. No reason to upgrade a simple work laptop these days unless the old one dies. So yeah, not surprised people aren't buying.
 
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First of all why should we buy these numbers? Where is IDC getting them from. And if Apple is poor value for the money why is nearly everyone else down too?
 
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Michael Scrip said:
We've heard the words "PC market is in decline" for years now. Does anyone know which quarter was its all-time high? I honestly don't remember what the market used to be.
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Market has always been hard to track due to PCs often being custom built. How do you determine a PC sale that’s not prebuilt? By CPUs sales? GPU? Number of OS licenses?

The actually PC market is near impossible to track. These IDC reports are always misleading because they don’t account for all computers. So it’s really hard to go back in time and actually answer the question.

I guess the correct headline should be “prebuilt market is in decline”
 
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fairuz said:
The new ones are definitely worse. I bought the 2015 rMBP instead of going for fewer ports and basically the same components for a greater price. And the only reason I bought it is my old laptop broke. No reason to upgrade a simple work laptop these days unless the old one dies. So yeah, not surprised people aren't buying.
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You can say how bad the new Macbooks are... you won't be alone.

But clearly someone bought 4,613,000 Macintosh computers in the last 3 months... and I'd imagine most of them were laptops. (but I doubt many of them were old 2015 refurbs)

So are people purposely buying these terrible computers? :p
 
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LordVic said:
Market has always been hard to track due to PCs often being custom built. How do you determine a PC sale that’s not prebuilt? By CPUs sales? GPU? Number of OS licenses?

The actually PC market is near impossible to track. These IDC reports are always misleading because they don’t account for all computers. So it’s really hard to go back in time and actually answer the question.

I guess the correct headline should be “prebuilt market is in decline”
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Sure... my main machine is a custom-built Windows workstation. :)

I guess I'm asking for the Gartner and IDC numbers from some time ago. It's those numbers that are used to determine this decline.

They may not be accurate... but at least they'd be measuring the same things (whatever they are)

I agree with you... we will never know the true numbers of the whole "PC market" due to home-built machines.

But every few months we get these reports from analysts. I want those historical numbers.
 
Michael Scrip said:
You can say how bad the new Macbooks are... you won't be alone.

But clearly someone bought 4,613,000 Macintosh computers in the last 3 months... and I'd imagine most of them were laptops. (but I doubt many of them were old 2015 refurbs)

So are people purposely buying these terrible computers? :p
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This is a classic mistake in logic. You assume 4.6M is a "big" number. The magnitude of a statistic is large only relative to its reference points, and the "base rate." Historical numbers represent those reference points.
 
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Michael Scrip said:
You can say how bad the new Macbooks are... you won't be alone.

But clearly someone bought 4,613,000 Macintosh computers in the last 3 months... and I'd imagine most of them were laptops. (but I doubt many of them were old 2015 refurbs)

So are people purposely buying these terrible computers? :p
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No, they're just buying whatever Apple sells and not going for refurb/used. Apple stopped selling the 2015 model a while ago, but I got lucky enough to buy when they still had it. Also, 4.6M isn't a big number; Apple used to sell more.
 
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john123 said:
This is a classic mistake in logic. You assume 4.6M is a "big" number. The magnitude of a statistic is large only relative to its reference points, and the "base rate." Historical numbers represent those reference points.
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I wasn't even thinking about all that.

I was simply considering how people say the new Apple laptops are terrible... and that most Macs sold are laptops.

Therefore... most people who buy Macs are buying terrible computers.

Or are they? Maybe "dongle-gate" isn't as bad as we think... :p

(my comment was mainly a jab at the "fewer ports at a higher price" notion... I was just being silly)
 
Not surprising. I still have my Early 2011 MacBook Pro 15". Since Apple won't make a MacBook Pro with 32GB of ram I see no reason to upgrade yet. I had 16GB of Ram since 2011. May have to look at a iMac. Also most PCs are fast enough to last for 5+ years now since most are used for Web surfing and Documents. Tablets and smart phones also play a roll. This is also why companies have started to go to subscriptions instead of you buying their software/ (ie. Office 365 and Adobe). The upgrades don't seem to be worth it to most people.
 
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