Apple's Notebook Sales Drop to Estimated 2.5M as Buyers Await New MacBook Pro

[MacRumors]

Apple reported its first negative-growth quarter since 2003 last month as iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales all declined compared to the year-ago period, and new data shows that notebook sales unsurprisingly fared no better when broken out.

MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro sales totaled an estimated 2.53 million in the first quarter of the 2016 calendar year, down from an estimated 3.4 million in the year-ago quarter, according to market research firm TrendForce.

Apple's notebook market share dropped to an estimated 7.1-percent in the first quarter, down from 8.8-percent in the previous March quarter, as Windows-based PC vendors and the overall notebook industry continue to suffer from slowing sales.

Apple remained the sixth largest notebook vendor in the first quarter, trailing behind PC makers Lenovo, HP, Dell, ASUS, and Acer but ahead of Samsung and Toshiba. Mac notebook sales dropped 40-percent quarter-over-quarter, but largely due to expected seasonality following the holiday shopping season.

In the first quarter, Apple did not have any new MacBook products ready for the market, nor did it lower MacBook prices to generate sales. Apple's Wintel-based competitors, on the other hand, benefitted from Windows 10 and the steady supply of Intel's Skylake CPUs. They were able to have numerous new products ready to promote and ship. As a result, MacBook shipments suffered a massive quarterly decline of 40.4% in the first quarter and Apple retreated to the sixth place in the ranking.

Many prospective buyers are also hoping for a redesigned MacBook Pro featuring faster Skylake processors and Thunderbolt 3 with USB-C, which could be announced at WWDC next month. Apple released a Skylake-based 12-inch MacBook in April and started shipping the 13-inch MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM as standard.

Apple officially reported Mac sales of 4.03 million during the past quarter, including the iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Pro alongside notebooks.

TrendForce estimates worldwide notebook shipments totaled 35.62 million units during the quarter, marking a year-over-year decline of 7.3-percent.

Article Link: Apple's Notebook Sales Drop to Estimated 2.5M as Buyers Await New MacBook Pro

 

[BeSweeet]

Bring on the space gray retina MacBook Pro, please.

 

[smacrumon]

Or, customers aren't upgrading or buying new MacBooks because their retail price point is way off the mark, incredibly too expensive.
Many "prospective buyers" wouldn't know exactly what was a "redesigned MacBook Pro" or a "Skylake processor", "Thunderbolt 3" or even "USB-C".
The price points are completely wrong.

 

[jclardy]

14" display in the same 13" footprint plus thunderbolt 3 ports and I'm in.

 

[rekhyt]

Long overdue.

Been waiting 2 years now.

 

[jclardy]

Or, customers aren't upgrading or buying new MacBooks because their retail price point is way off the mark, incredibly too expensive.

You are right, but only because Apple hasn't updated the Air properly, and the Pro is also quite stale. The MacBook itself is priced to high as well. There is no good "low-end" option from apple anymore.

 

[gramtrax]

But wait, we have all kinds of innovative products in the works. Really!

 

[Sandstorm]

Neglected, outdated and overpriced. Mini, pro, displays - are especially insulting.

EDIT - and before - but but Apple waits on Intel! - there are insane amount of things they could have done years ago - much better facetime cameras, drop the pathetic HDDs and switch to SSDs-only, drop non-retina displays, reduce display bezels, release a decent ergonomic mouse?
How about Touch-ID for the Mac? How about Thunderbolt displays that are not 5 years old with USB 2, crappy speakers, reflective and so on?

As it stands right now - Apple offers stale products with outdated internals, at an unbelievable (exorbitant) price. That is something only Apple can do.

 

[AndrewClarke]

When Apple doesn't provide a MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, or Mac Pro worth buying, I'm sure it isn't a surprise to them that we're not buying them.

You'd have to be desperate to buy something from most of Apple's computer lineup right now. My 2011 MacBook Pro is limping along but I'll just keep reformatting/restoring rather than buy what they're selling at the moment.

Give me something I actually want to buy, Apple.

 

[Stella]

$3000CA for the high end Macbook Pro 2015 - a total rip off. Looking at what you get for "PC" laptop at the same price range is an embarrassment for Apple!

Apple had better increase value for money in the next model...

Sadly, Apple are losing the edge with their computer range.. slimmer and eye candy hardware just doesn't cut it. There needs to be value for money. I'm not seeing it with the existing range.

 

[magicschoolbus]

Well, when you're producing underpowered notebooks with 2006 tech for front facing webcams at $1200, what do you expect? And let's not even go into the fact that we cannot upgrade these expensive, already outdated from factory machines. Not being able to upgrade RAM in a machine worth what you're paying to Apple is insane.


People are finally learning to speak with their wallets.

 

[jblagden]

Are we surprised?

I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not surprised. I know a lot of folks are blaming “Mac Longevity”. While it’s true that Macs last a long time, that doesn’t have anything to do with sales. Look at the smartphone market; people buy a new smartphone every two years. The reason for drop in sales is the lack of upgradeability. You can’t use overpriced
proprietary Solid State Drives and solder the RAM to the logic board and then expect sales to either maintain or increase. Most folks (myself included) would rather stick with an outdated Mac than buy one which is barely upgradeable. The old MacBook Pros have upgradeable hard drives, upgradeable RAM, upgradeable wireless cards, and the optical drive bay bay can be used as a second hard drive bay for extra storage.

 

[puma1552]

Apple doesn't care about computers. They used to do major refreshes every 8 months with speed bumps every 4 months, now you're lucky to get one half-assed update a year.

Spare me the spiel about being chained to Intel's cycles, they could certainly update many other parts of the machine on a regular basis.

 

[levitynyc]

Hardware sales are tanking all across the industry.

Other than high end enthusiasts, people really don't see any value in these incremental updates.

My 4 year old MacBook Air is desperately in need or replacement, but the price point of a new Apple Laptop is just too high.

 

[IlluminatedSage]

At this point most Mac OS customers have woken up to the fact that Apple has not reinvested in product development, refreshes and more. It is very upsetting that Apple does not release refreshed computers more often, even waiting 2+ years.

I'd be happy to buy a new MacBook Pro with latest in tech, great graphics chip and more....but apple isn't making one.

This is a real problem, I'm not alone in thinking Windows 10 is a viable alternative.

The Mac OS X ought not be a part time hobby for Apple, they need to have proper and ongoing product development with new models and updates across the product lines for each model at no less than 1x a year.

Consumers are demanding this.

Nuts

 

[Santabean2000]

Rotting fruit goes unsold. *surprise*

 

[mountain]

Apple profit will continue to decline if they keep doing this. They don't want to move to new tech to gain more profit and cut cost.

 

[kuito]

Everyone saying that the pricing right now is too high for what is being marketed are spot on. I have been waiting for a substantial update to the 15" Macbook Pro Retina line, but nada. It's sad seeing Apple decline like this. I really hope they have something up their sleeves.

Meanwhile my Surface Pro 4 tablet is great, but really hoping Apple gets their **** together.

 

[Crosscreek]

1 port and a pile of adapters.

 

[Schwyz]

Hurry up and give us a MacBook Pro we don't have to hide in shame.

 

[brijazz]

My 2011 MacBook Pro is limping along but I'll just keep reformatting/restoring rather than buy what they're selling at the moment.

Give me something I actually want to buy, Apple.

I hear ya. Unless they completely eff up their new product offerings at WWDC, I'll be replacing my mid-2010 MPB.

 

[Reason077]

Headline should be:

"
Apple's Notebook Sales Drop to Estimated 2.5M as many buyers now find their phone and iPad good enough for most tasks"

 

[840quadra]

But I just upgraded last year, how dare they release new models .

I am not unhappy though, picked up my 15" with AMD graphics to replace my aging Late 2008 MBP 15" . Couldn't be happier, and I bet those still holding onto 2009 - 2010 models will love the new release for sure. So far this has been the best Mac / Windows laptop I have ever used .

 

[Winter Charm]

It's their own damn fault for waiting this long. People expect regular updates. I'm not paying $2k on a notebook for outdated hardware.

 

[Yixian]

As others have said, the wait for these upgrades has been astronomical. I've been waiting 2 years, it's just not acceptable and frankly embarrassing.