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Apple's U.S. Mac Shipments Fall 7.5% as Overall PC Market Plunges 14% Year-Over-Year [Updated]

MH01 said:
I wonder what percentage custom build PCs make up, for desktops that is.

No one I know would buy a Dell etc desktop, they would build it themselves. Most tent to upgrade components.

I can see more people having a decent desktop these days for cpu/gpu intensive grunt and a tablet for portability.
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I, too, would love to know that. I've built my own PCs since the 90s... and I follow dozens of hardware-related websites and podcasts.

But I gotta wonder... how many video cards do EVGA or PNY sell to end-users? How many motherboards do ASUS or GIGABYTE sell to end-users?

All those companies must be making money... or else they wouldn't be in business. There must be a market for components to assemble your own PC.

There are 684 video cards and 340 motherboards for sale on Newegg right now... they must be selling them, right?
 
SanJacinto said:
No, Apple's Macintosh sales declined by 7.5%.
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Well, according to Gartner's numbers they increased 7.5%

Analysts...enough said!


So if it's an increase or decline, Apple is still doing great compaired to most of its competitors.

Only Lenova has an increase, but this is probably do to their professional notebooks.
Here in Europe, they have a line of 13" and 15" "hard plastic looking" heavy-duty notebooks and desktops that are quite robust and are favored with companies that use Wintel systems.
 
Why people should buy new computers when they are only a bit faster? And their consumption is too big compared to tablets and phones.
 
Maybe tablets are taking more and more over from now on? I think that the PC market is falling because of the use nowadays. People like to use their devices while traveling, and it's much easier to bring either your phone or your tablet compared to carrying a PC
 
Itpirate said:
People are not refreshing computers like they used to. Where I work it has gone from a 3 year refresh, to a 4, and now 5 year refresh.

We are also starting to implement VDI where it makes sense and this will really start to eat into computer sales.

The days of swapping out that old workstation every 2 to 3 years are gone.
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The last two Macs that I have bought were used from CL. Next Mac I get will also be used. Last new Mac I bought was in 2010.

Actual new HW purchased was a Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and a 4S all this year.
 
the8thark said:
I did. And that kind of desktop will always live in small numbers.
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True... laptops surpassed desktops a while ago.

Still though... there were over 300 million laptops and desktops sold last year.

Or in other words... 300 million non-tablets sold last year.

I guess it won't be long until both laptops and desktops fall behind tablets.
 
hestroy said:
Why people should buy new computers when they are only a bit faster? And their consumption is too big compared to tablets and phones.
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I agree but very few people upgrade each year, the iMac gets about a 10% boost in CPU power each upgrade. Most will wait 3-4 years where their new iMac will be maybe 50% faster.

Since tablets and smartphones are evolving at a much quicker rate people are more likely to update them ever 1 or 2 years.
 
Lancer said:
I agree but very few people upgrade each year, the iMac gets about a 10% boost in CPU power each upgrade. Most will wait 3-4 years where their new iMac will be maybe 50% faster.

Since tablets and smartphones are evolving at a much quicker rate people are more likely to update them ever 1 or 2 years.
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iMac gets a 10% cpu boost every year but it also gets faster memory, faster bus, faster ssd, faster gpu so the overall performance is more than 10%.
 
Wish they still made 17" Pro

I realize I am likely in the minority, but the only reason I've not upgraded this year is that Apple took away the only option I really cared for, the 17" Macbook Pro. Being in design, and working almost entirely remotely, it has been the workhorse of my business for years now (hell, I think I've owned at least 4 of them). And trust me, just as in sex, 2" makes a huge difference ;)

I still have not decided what I will do when my current Pro finally gives it up. I suppose I am hoping that between now and then, something new will reveal itself.

Sigh.
 
My 2011 MacBook Air is fast enough for me. I'm not upgrading until they offer a haswell gt3 MacBook Air.

My desktop pc is a sandy core i5. I'm not upgrading that thing until it dies or they make something twice as fast.

Now when it comes to tablets and smartphones, my wife and I upgrade frequently. I've had my ipad mini for just a few months but ill probably get the new one when it is released.
 
spiglet said:
I realize I am likely in the minority, but the only reason I've not upgraded this year is that Apple took away the only option I really cared for, the 17" Macbook Pro. Being in design, and working almost entirely remotely, it has been the workhorse of my business for years now (hell, I think I've owned at least 4 of them). And trust me, just as in sex, 2" makes a huge difference ;)

I still have not decided what I will do when my current Pro finally gives it up. I suppose I am hoping that between now and then, something new will reveal itself.

Sigh.
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I was like you. Never used any mbp other than 17". But I bought the retina 15" last year and now my old 17" seems huge and unnecessary. 15 turned out to be more than enough for me.
 
Lancer said:
I agree but very few people upgrade each year, the iMac gets about a 10% boost in CPU power each upgrade. Most will wait 3-4 years where their new iMac will be maybe 50% faster.
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Exactly.

A person might only upgrade once every 3-4 years... but people upgrade every day.

The 2012 iMac wasn't created solely for those who own a 2011 iMac... it's for anyone who owns any iMac from any prior year. Or for first-time iMac users too!

And the same can be said for any product that receives updates every year... phones, cameras, cars, etc

Somebody is ready to buy every single day :)
 
I think it's more a matter of necessity. Many people just don't need a new PC. For at least 95% of computer users any Core 2 Duo with at least 2GB of RAM is more than powerful enough to do everything they need out of computer. Hardware capabilities has just vastly outpaced software for the average user.

Besides the tech enthusiast. Most people would rather plod along with their computer than spend hundreds of dollars on a new one. So the only reason to replace that aging PC is because a costly component has failed and it makes no sense to spend money to repair it or it is loaded with garbage and they think it is too slow when it just needs to be cleaned.

Heck a Pentium IV is fast enough for most people if it has enough RAM. Just look at the Intel Atom and AMD Fusion.

Ultimately in the long term I think tablets will largely replace laptops. Desktop sales will steady off. A 9" tablet can't replace multiple 24" desktop screens. So for the foreseeable future the desktop has no replacement for a lot of business work.
 
IDC estimating minus 7.5% growth vs. Gartner's plus 7.4% growth for Macs?!?!

In a couple of weeks when Apple reports, one of these companies may well lose their credibility going forward.
 
There are two factors at work here I think, first there are a lot of people realising that they don't need a PC because all they do is send email and browse the internet. Second many individuals and more importantly companies have realised that the PC they have is still powerful enough to do all they need it to do. PC's have become so powerful now that 6 year old machines are still quite capable and reliability is also very high so why replace them when money is tight. Also Windows 8 while not a total flop is an irrelevance for most users and not enough to entice people to upgrade their hardware for. In the past software has been a driving force behind hardware renewal but these days that is becoming less and less the case.
 
selva said:
IDC estimating minus 7.5% growth vs. Gartner's plus 7.4% growth for Macs?!?!

In a couple of weeks when Apple reports, one of these companies may well lose their credibility going forward.
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Or both if there hasn't been any change ;)
 
gomacyourself said:
Congrats on that historic 40% stock drop btw. Wake up and smell the coffee, it's not wall street playing games on apple's stock, it's you guys effing it up and people voting away with their money.
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Funny that Apple's stock was at an all time high when they haven't updated their pro machines for over 2 years. Nothing changed on the Pro front during the stock drop.
 
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Buying habits of people on electronics must be changing. Or the economic slump taking in that people are not spending much on new gadgets. Though maybe come third quarter sales will improve.
 
gomacyourself said:
The article's title is very misleading.

From what I read lenovo kicked apple's ass real good, 14% growth vs. 7.5% decline, that's about 20% difference..

What's lenovo famous for? Notebooks for business users, for pro users, or generally users expecting a robust, functional, upgradable, quality investment in their computer.
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Lenovo is irrelevant. When people buy a Lenovo instead of an HP they are still buying the same thing, a PC. So Apple never cared about different PC vendors eating into each others marketshare as long as they don't eat into Apple's marketshare. PC marketshare is dropping so there is nothing wrong with the title of the article. The overall PC marketshare never drops uniformly on all vendors but in the end there are less PC's being sold year over year.
 
mrsir2009 said:
On high end computers designed for professionals.
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I wouldn't count on Apple to court such a small market. In fact, I would expect a company like Apple to realize sooner than most that laptops and desktops are going to go the way of the optical drive, and to cut them out of an otherwise growing product base.

Apple never made much money off of computers, and now they are making even less than that.
 
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