Apple's Mac Shipments Increase in Q2 2018 as PC Market Sees First Growth in 6 Years [Updated]

[Feenician]

No, they do not throw away their MBPs. That is not what I said. They simply do not buy MPBs in the first place.

I can just report on my observations. Whereas previous generations of students used to carry Macs into class, I do not see this happen anymore. The chart in the article seems to agree. There is no spike of 'Back-to-school' sales anymore...

I’m not in your class, I’m at least 20 years too late, so I can’t verify. I’m not sure how you’re quantifying the back to school figures but, given that it back to school launched today I’m absolutely sure you these figures can’t quantify any spike that may happen.

 

[zilba25]

Let's stop it with the faulty keyboard scenario already. Not most people are being affected. It is overrated and was started by a Mac hater that quickly escalated and supported by more Mac haters. Now don't quote me on that...

Every time I had my keyboard changed (twice already) I was for 7-10 days with no computer. I do not think it is overrated. And yes, I take very good care of my 4k laptop.

Now, it is my right speaker that stops working when volume is set too high.

 

[iMcLovin]

I find it strange that the Mac sale increases with the current line up.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

The $7 (or much less. I specifically looked for Anker, given their reputation) it would require to make this work is surely worth changing your entire workflow. People are throwing away their MBPs in droves, throwing them in a fire and shouting “burn the witch”. This is definitely a thing that’s happening. (do I need to put /s here?)

If the cost is such a none issue why doesn't Apple include the port or put the adapter in the box?

 

[Abazigal]

Imagine Apple’s market share if their machines were just 10% more affordable. But then Apple would be left with a measly 30% profit. Wall St. can’t be having that now, can they. After all, look what happened the bankers after the bailout—champagne for all!

Market share is the means. Profit is the end.

What’s the point of being able to sell more devices if I earn less revenue in total?

 

[kazmac]

Great to see PC growth. Now I’d love to see Apple get back into QC and release solid hardware and software again.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Market share is the means. Profit is the end.

That's way too simplistic; is it better to make 100% profit on ten machines or 10% profit on a million machines?

 

[Abazigal]

That's way too simplistic; is it better to make 100% profit on ten machines or 10% profit on a million machines?

Whichever earns you more profit is the better way.

 

[FFR]

That's way too simplistic; is it better to make 100% profit on ten machines or 10% profit on a million machines?

Not really simplistic more like obvious.
100% of 4 million units > 10% of 15 million units.

It’s pretty obvious.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Not really simplistic more like obvious.
100% of 4 million units > 10% of 15 million units.

It’s pretty obvious.

I just posed a theoretical question but OK; in your example I'm guessing you're siding with Apple's "more profit, less market share" ideology. Yet your example ( 4 million + 15 million = 19 million ) puts Apple, or the less market-share example let's not split hairs, at 21.05% market-share to make their 100% profit.

Apple doesn't have 21.05% of the PC market.

 

[Abazigal]

I just posed a theoretical question but OK; in your example I'm guessing you're siding with Apple's "more profit, less market share" ideology. Yet your example ( 4 million + 15 million = 19 million ) puts Apple, or the less market-share example let's not split hairs, at 21.05% market-share to make their 100% profit.

Apple doesn't have 21.05% of the PC market.

This post does not even make sense.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

This post does not even make sense.

I pointed out in the example posted a theoretical company would have to be pulling a 21.05% market-share for their less market-share more profit to make sense. Then I pointed-out Apple doesn't have 21.05% market-share so the sums can never make sense; I'm sorry if that's hard to understand.

 

[Krayzkat]

There should be a slight bias to sell more machines than the best profit/margin ratio allows, as Apple will make extra money from increased AppleCare sales, App Store/software sales, accessories (mice etc), and even Genius Bar upgrading/repairing fees (once AC runs out)........

 

[Abazigal]

I pointed out in the example posted a theoretical company would have to be pulling a 21.05% market-share for their less market-share more profit to make sense. Then I pointed-out Apple doesn't have 21.05% market-share so the sums can never make sense; I'm sorry if that's hard to understand.

He was giving hypothetical numbers just like yourself.

At the end of the day, I don't think it's a very difficult concept to grasp. Apple charges what the market will bear. Imagine a bell curve representing total profit (average profit x total units sold), and Apple has found this equilibrium of price that still allows them to sell a ton of devices while maximising profit.

Or to put it another way - as a company, would you want Apple's profits, or XXX company's market share?

I agree it's not as simplistic as it seems. More devices can also mean more sales of accessories and services, though I assume Apple has already factored them all into the final price.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

He was giving hypothetical numbers just like yourself.

At the end of the day, I don't think it's a very difficult concept to grasp. Apple charges what the market will bear. Imagine a bell curve representing total profit (average profit x total units sold), and Apple has found this equilibrium of price that still allows them to sell a ton of devices while maximising profit.

Or to put it another way - as a company, would you want Apple's profits, or XXX company's market share?

I agree it's not as simplistic as it seems. More devices can also mean more sales of accessories and services, though I assume Apple has already factored them all into the final price.

Agree completely; the only problem is when market share becomes so small it goes away regardless of the profit involved.

 

[TroyBoy30]

just proves how many crazy people are in the world

 

[Remy149]

A

The sales numbers are staring to show Apple's lack of interest in their Mac line. Remember: Without a Mac, many people would not buy an iPhone.

The 5 year neglect of their Mac line is a great stategic mistake for Apple.

lmost everyone I know who owns iPhones don’t own a Mac or any other conventional computer

 

[Zdigital2015]

The sales numbers are staring to show Apple's lack of interest in their Mac line. Remember: Without a Mac, many people would not buy an iPhone.

The 5 year neglect of their Mac line is a great stategic mistake for Apple.

You are being disingenuous...the entire Mac line has not been neglected for 5 years, even the Mac Pro has not been "neglected" for that long.

• Intel-based iMacs has been been updated every single year since 2006, sometimes twice in one year, with the exception of 2016. In that time, we have gone from 20" and 24" iMacs with 32-bit Intel Core Duo CPUs to 21.5" and 27" Core i5 and i7 CPUs with superior displays, PCIe-based storage, desktop level GPUs and high-speed peripheral interconnects.
• Intel-based MacBook Pros have been updated each and every year, sometimes twice in one year, since 2006. In that time we have gone from aluminum to unibody to Retina to what he have now, moving from Intel Core Duo CPUs to 4-core 28w and 6-core 45w CPUs, from 128MB GPUs to 4GB GPUs, from 2GB of RAM max to 16 or 32GB of RAM max.
• Intel-based MacBook Airs have been updated each and every year from 2008 to 2015, when the 12" MacBook was introduced to replace it. We went from 1 USB 2.0 port, 2GB RAM and HDD to 8GB RAM, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 Thunderbolt 2 port and fast Flash Storage. It was even updated in 2017, even if it was a simple, mostly meaning less symbolic update.
• Intel-based 12" MacBook Airs have been updated each and every year from 2015 to 2017, adding faster storage and a larger RAM ceiling. Apple has not updated it this year, because Intel has yet to announce a new 5w Y-Series CPU (Coffee Lake or Cannon Lake) 5w Y-Series suitable for the 12" MacBook. That is on Intel, not Apple.
  
• Apple has NOT upgraded the 2013 Mac Pro in 4 years 7 months, which is abysmal, but has committed to delivering a new Mac Pro in 2019. While Pro users are an important market for Apple, they are a small market that Apple has tried to keep happy with increasingly powerful iMacs and the introduction of the iMac Pro.
• Apple has NOT upgraded the 2014 Mac mini in 3 years 3 months, which is abysmal, and has not committed to delivering a replacement yet, which is again, abysmal.

Am I splitting hairs about the length of time, the answer is yes. But of the 4 product lines that Apple sells the most of to its users, they have not neglected these product lines. Of the two lines that Apple sells the least of, they have neglected them in favor of other product lines (iPhone and iPad) that have sales, revenue and interest in that is so much higher than all their computer lines combined by a factor of 6.9 times as many units. Hardly a bad strategy.

Looking at sales figures over the past 5 years, Mac sales are up slightly from Q2 of 2013, when you look at the four-quarter moving average. Source: https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/05/apple-quarterly-results-charts-live-tweets/

Whether or not neglecting the Mac mini and the Mac Pro and a somewhat muddled notebook lineup are strategic mistakes is a matter of opinion. I believe Apple could keep the mini line updated with a reasonably small engineering team, as up until the transition to Thunderbolt 3, it's simply a matter of updating to the next generation of Intel 28w U-Series CPUs (using that logic, the mini should be on at least Skylake, but still on Thunderbolt 2, waiting for 7th or 8th Gen and Thunderbolt 3), but Apple chose to apply that engineering talent to the MacBook, the TouchBar MacBook Pros, iPhone, iPad, Watch, AirPods, HomePod, et al. in the interim. All of these product lines sell so much more than the mini would/could ever hope to sell, that there is absolutely no way a competent executive would divert those precious engineering resources to a low volume, low margin product such as the mini. Or even to a low volume, high margin product like the Mac Pro. I may not like it, you may not like it, many people here may not like it, but it is the correct way for any competent business executive to allocate limited engineering resources in order to make sure the business is profitable and able to meet an order of magnitude higher volume of customer demand.

 

[RogerWilco]

I find it strange that the Mac sale increases with the current line up.

Must be laptops, only a blinkered fool would buy today's Mini. Sales of iMacs and iMPs are a rounding error in the overall numbers.

 

[Zdigital2015]

There was a time when I saw a lot of people coming to class carrying a Mac. This seems to be over now.

If you study electrical engineering you very likely have to program micro-controllers and stuff. This requires at least a USB-A port. The same goes for USB-Sticks that students hand around in class. Not everybody is part of the same cloud system. So the next generation of engineers are lost to Apple.

That's a tad melodramatic, don't you think?

What is on the other end of that USB-A cable to the micro-controller? Is it an RS-232 port, Micro-USB, Mini-USB, completely proprietary? Genuinely curious, because you can get any of these standardized (RS-232, Micro-USB, Mini-USB), non-proprietary cables with USB-C on the other end by doing a simple Google search or a product search on Amazon. Even with a proprietary cable, you should be able to use a USB-C to USB-A dongle without issue.

Flash sticks with USB-C and USB-A on them are now pretty common (I have a SanDisk Ultra one myself - $12.99). Anyways, there's also a little something called AirDrop on Macs, iPhones and iPads. Sure, not everybody is part of a Cloud-based system, but don't most reputable Universities have systems for helping student communicate with each other?

Honestly, if there are students that have been accepted to study electrical engineering that cannot find simple cable solutions by Googling or searching Amazon to find a USB-C substitute for the USB-A cable they need, perhaps they should consider a different field of study altogether.

I would like to think that if these students are smart enough to get into an Electrical Engineering school and are there to learn to build the next generation of ICs, CPUs, wireless modems, etc, that they would already possess some basic electrical skills like soldering, reading schematics, working with bread boards, reading a Fluke meter and some of them might even be able to cobble together a cable all on their own, but I digress.

If the next generation of Electrical Engineers cannot figure out how to move past the humble, ubiquitous USB-A port into the bold new future of the USB-C port, then we are all well and truly screwed.

 

[ntlman]

Let's stop it with the faulty keyboard scenario already. Not most people are being affected. It is overrated and was started by a Mac hater that quickly escalated and supported by more Mac haters. Now don't quote me on that...

Um, no. I work for one of the largest healthcare providers on the West Coast. All of our developers and designers, along with Product Owners and Managers, use MacBook Pros. The keyboard issue is very real, and it is super annoying.

And it's not just the keyboards: we have had 2017 MacBook Pros--out of the box for less than 6 months--that have had to be completely replaced due to non-charging batteries/chargers and non-responsive touchpads.

it's the product line. Apple historically has been best with a limited but super focused product line. Take a look at the historical timeline: we're approaching early 90s levels product confusion and Steve Jobs is not coming back to fix things.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/dea6cc9ecb33f54ec11539c7a44f1689.png

 

[CWallace]

That's way too simplistic; is it better to make 100% profit on ten machines or 10% profit on a million machines?

At one million units compared to ten, economies of scale can have a significant impact on production cost and therefore profit per unit.

If I sell 10 machines that cost me $100,000 each to produce, I make $1 million in profit (10 x $100,000).

If I sell 1 million machines that cost me $10 each to produce thanks to economies of scale, I still make $1 million in profit (1,000,000 x $1). And if it only costs me $5 each to produce, then I make "only" $500,000 in profit (1,000,000 x $.50).

 

[FFR]

I just posed a theoretical question but OK; in your example I'm guessing you're siding with Apple's "more profit, less market share" ideology. Yet your example ( 4 million + 15 million = 19 million ) puts Apple, or the less market-share example let's not split hairs, at 21.05% market-share to make their 100% profit.

Apple doesn't have 21.05% of the PC market.

Your not making any sense.
Why would you add 4 million and 15 million?

Here are the actual shipment numbers for 2q18:

Once moreapple being number 4 with 100% profit of 4.395 million is favorable to being number 1 with 13 .6 million units but only record 10% as profit.

 

[falainber]

Let's stop it with the faulty keyboard scenario already. Not most people are being affected. It is overrated and was started by a Mac hater that quickly escalated and supported by more Mac haters. Now don't quote me on that...

Are you saying that device is faulty only if all users are affected? By this definition we would not have faulty devices at all. Even Apple admitted that the keyboards are faulty by announcing a free repair program. What other validation of the fault do you need? A verdict by US Supreme Court?

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Your not making any sense.
Why would you add 4 million and 15 million?

Here are the actual shipment numbers for 2q18:

Once moreapple being number 4 with 100% profit of 4.395 million is favorable to being number 1 with 13 .6 million units but only record 10% as profit.

Because those were the the numbers the original poster thought they had issues with; you don't like them take it up with them!