U.S. Mac Sales Grow 28.5% in Holiday Quarter, PC Market Suffers Worst Decline Ever [Updated]

[charleswhalley]

2013 - A bad year for apple Sales

The figure maybe skewed as I recall that supplies for Macs for the last quarter of 2013 were limited on many fronts.

 

[Elbon]

Even if all I did was listen to music and browse the web I'd choose the MacBook experience over the iPad one any day.

Same here. I really want to love my iPad, but I can't quite get there. The Music app is a mess, and anything requiring text entry is a pain. I tried an external keyboard, but since iOS isn't really optimized for keyboard navigation, it didn't help much.

I guess what I want from an iPad is more of a scaled down OS X, not a scaled up iPhone. I'm hoping they will get there eventually, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[deadkennedy]

Thank you MS for Windows 8! More and more will come....

It's not about Win8. It's about a trend that people who need devices for Facebooking are buying tablets, they don't need workstations. People who need workstations, they make money with it, they buy good workstations, Macbook Pro for example. I can't imagine myself working on any Windows laptop professionally, the price of Mac is well worth it if you need the machine to pay your rent.

So the PC's will continue to decline because people found they don't need them for entertainment anymore. That will by default increase the Mac market share as people who buy Mac's buy them mostly for working.

 

[notjustjay]

This thread is full of people who either never used Windows 8 or used Windows 8 in passing at a store and developed this immense hatred for it.

I use Windows 8 and so does everyone in my office. [Metro]... is an extremely frustrating experience for me to use it.

I use Windows 8, and after the initial shock, I ended up liking it alright. I wouldn't call it perfect, but a lot of its supposed failings are blown way out of proportion.

Well, as I mentioned in my post above, I was intentionally NOT trying to be difficult, or go in with a confirmation bias ("See? Windows 8 sucks, and this proves it!") If you were to go back through my post history you'd see that for the past year I've been saying that I think Windows 8 has a lot of potential, that some of these convertible tablet-laptop designs looked great, and that for my next laptop purchase I was seriously torn between another Mac or a Windows 8 machine.

And what you didn't see, because I didn't really post about it, is how many hours I've spent online reading reviews of devices such as the Lenovo Yoga 13 and Yoga 11S, Yoga 2 Pro, Dell XPS 12, Surface and Surface Pro (and Surface Pro 2), and other tablet-with-keyboard options such as the HP Envy X2 (and other X2 series), Asus T100, Dell Venue 8 and 11 Pro, Thinkpad Tablet, Sony Vaio Duo, Vaio Pro, Vaio Tap 11, etc, etc.

Every time I dropped by my local Best Buy I'd play with the machines (usually the Yoga). Quite contrary to TheHateMachine's comments, my 5-minute store demos were always positive, and I kept thinking "yep, I want one of these." Finally, a few weeks ago, Boxing Week sales after Christmas (for non-Canadians, think Black Friday sales), I picked up the Yoga I'd been dreaming of for the better part of a year.

I really tried to give it a good shake. Like I said, I'm not a Windows hater -- I've built my own Windows boxes, owned multiple Dell laptops, use Windows at work every day (typing this message on a Win7 box right now). I know my way around DOS, the Windows command line, regedit, the works.

But Windows 8? I stand by my previous comments. It is a buggy inconsistent mess. Desktop mode looks fine, like any other Windows box I've ever used. But Metro is full of bugs. Unfortunately, the key selling point of these tablet/laptops is the ability to use tablet-like apps -- that means Metro. So I gave up. I think I could have learned to work around some of the issues, but like a death by a thousand cuts, I decided that after spending nearly a grand on a brand new machine I shouldn't have to deal with so many problems.

(The fact that I bought another MacBook Pro is serendipitous -- I would have returned the Yoga either way, new Mac or not.)

I am willing to give Win8 another chance, but with a cheaper, smaller device this time. Perhaps a Dell Venue 8 Pro, or an Asus T100.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Sorry it took you so long wondering in the woods but welcome to the party.

Was he wandering as he was wondering? Just wondering.

 

[sseaton1971]

Worldwide it still wouldn't be Apple on top with tablet sales. Asus sells a ton of tablets and I suspect others would also get a boost. Lenovo is estimated to have sold 53 million computers. So even adding 40 million tablets to Apple's Mac sales wouldn't put Apple at the top. And Lenovo sells some tablets of its own.

I agree... but the story people are commenting on is about U.S. sales.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The big question here is this:

What in the hell are Dell and Lenovo doing that HP, Toshiba and the others are not doing? How are Dell and Lenovo still in positive YoY growth? That secret I think everyone needs to know so they know how to overcome it and sell more of their own products. Apple too, they need to get Dell and Lenovo into the negative territory.

The Windows OEMs are trading market share constantly, probably because there is so little to distinguish one of their products from another. This is one of the reasons why market share is such an uninformative statistic.

 

[notjustjay]

I will always keep my files local. I don't want sensitive data being stored in the cloud, and I don't want to rely on a relatively slow Internet connection. Internet speeds are not going to reach Thunderbolt 2 (or faster) speeds anytime soon. Perhaps you don't have files with sensitive data or use extremely large files, but many of us do. Security and speed are a big deal.

Plus not everyone's needs are met by "the cloud". Almost by definition a laptop is designed to be taken with you on-the-go. Some folks are fortunate that some kind of wireless internet is available virtually everywhere they go, and for them a Chromebook might be great. But when I'm in a vehicle (plane, train, cruise ship), or at a library, hotel, in class, at work, etc. I simply might not have WiFi access.

I know Chromebooks can be used offline but their capacity is still somewhat limited. I don't foresee myself going all-cloud anytime soon, even without the worries of document sizes or security.

 

[Tayobi]

I got a MacBook and an iPhone but I will always have a PC desktop as my base.

iPhone and iPad and Tablets are great for music, movies, email and some portable gaming on the go. I use my Windows 7 PC mainly for gaming, a little bit of work (Excel and Words), internet and managing/storing my data files.

As a gaming platform, the PC still has a lot more choices than the Mac. Yeah, the PS4 only cost $399 but PC still has its advantages. It is true that when consoles get more powerful and more PC-like, PC becomes relatively less attractive as a gaming platform.

I also wonder if people buy the components to build their own PC's would those new PC built be included in some statistics not captured by the sales numbers. I built my own rig for the first time two years ago. Before that I used buy pre-configured PC online or from local retailers because I didn't have the knowledge and confidence to do it but now I do. For cases like mine ,the sales is not lost.

 

[Renzatic]

But Windows 8? I stand by my previous comments. It is a buggy inconsistent mess. Desktop mode looks fine, like any other Windows box I've ever used. But Metro is full of bugs. Unfortunately, the key selling point of these tablet/laptops is the ability to use tablet-like apps -- that means Metro. So I gave up. I think I could have learned to work around some of the issues, but like a death by a thousand cuts, I decided that after spending nearly a grand on a brand new machine I shouldn't have to deal with so many problems.

I could kind of agree with this. Metro is the weakest part of Windows 8, and the default apps a ton of work before I'd consider them able to compete with iPad and Android stuff. Some of them are pretty good, like I'd say IE10 and 11 have the best touch based UI of any browser I've seen, and One Note is freaking awesome. But the rest? They're, at best, meh. Mail is limited and hard to navigate around in. Photos just gets you by. Skydrive? It's been stupided up, and can't even do a quarter of the things the damn web app can do. Weather? Eh. It's alright. Music? Eghgwhghwghwgh.

This is the reason why the Surface RT is falling flat on its ass. Most of the default apps that work so well on the iPad, the ones most people are gonna play with, aren't all that good. Yeah, things have improved a bit with 8.1, but they're still not all that great. MS still has a lot of work to when it comes to Metro.

..and the worst thing is, when the Metro stuff is great, it's really great. So the potential for awesome things is sitting there right in front of your face, practically teasing you. Problem is, they're taking their sweet ass time getting everything up to par.

 

[dec.]

As a gaming platform, the PC still has a lot more choices than the Mac. Yeah, the PS4 only cost $399 but PC still has its advantages. It is true that when consoles get more powerful and more PC-like, PC becomes relatively less attractive as a gaming platform.

I also wonder if people buy the components to build their own PC's would those new PC built be included in some statistics not captured by the sales numbers. I built my own rig for the first time two years ago. Before that I used buy pre-configured PC online or from local retailers because I didn't have the knowledge and confidence to do it but now I do. For cases like mine ,the sales is not lost.

Gaming is the only reason why there still is one windows pc in our house, my dedicated gaming PC - which I use like an iPad - shortcuts to apps/games on the desktop (and Steam) and nothing else than that (windows 7 that is, so far nobody could give me good enough reason to "upgrade" to windows 8).

 

[TheHateMachine]

Coming from a guy with the name "TheHateMachine", complaining about any hatred seems rather stupid. That said, so far every Windows 8 user who talked to me about it said that they hated, hated, hated it.

I am saddened that you believe your anecdotal evidence is like the word of a deity and covers everyone. Seems rather stupid...

 

[ani4ani]

yay.. Dell...

I think most people would hate Windows 8..... It's probably the most hated OS..

While i small percentage of them like it..

and yet 90% of the world still buys it...and uses it; go figure!

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I don't usually post about these kinds of comments, but this was just too funny to pass up. Why do so many people think that a site named "MacRumors" wouldn't have a Mac -- and Apple -- slant?

It's kind of like going on a Red Sox website and asking why it's so biased against the Yankees.

Good grief!

So, given the likely "slant" should be it assumed that these same folks probably know less about the usability and value of Windows but nevertheless continue to harp on about it? To use your own analogy, it is fair to say the knowledge about the Yankees is probably lacking?

 

[Michael Goff]

yay.. Dell...

I think most people would hate Windows 8..... It's probably the most hated OS..

While i small percentage of them like it..

Most hated? Where do you get that?

 

[BaldiMac]

Worldwide it still wouldn't be Apple on top with tablet sales. Asus sells a ton of tablets and I suspect others would also get a boost. Lenovo is estimated to have sold 53 million computers. So even adding 40 million tablets to Apple's Mac sales wouldn't put Apple at the top. And Lenovo sells some tablets of its own.

Good try for the save! Obviously, the list being discussed was U.S. sales.

 

[TheHateMachine]

It's not about Win8. It's about a trend that people who need devices for Facebooking are buying tablets, they don't need workstations. People who need workstations, they make money with it, they buy good workstations, Macbook Pro for example. I can't imagine myself working on any Windows laptop professionally, the price of Mac is well worth it if you need the machine to pay your rent.

So the PC's will continue to decline because people found they don't need them for entertainment anymore. That will by default increase the Mac market share as people who buy Mac's buy them mostly for working.

Are you are stating that the market will reduce down to workstations only (completely ignoring thin clients and mid range machines pretty much every office worker uses) and the low volume nMP is going to push market share higher? Companies aren't buying HP Zs, Dell Precision or a Boxx?

 

[AppleScruff1]

It's not about Win8. It's about a trend that people who need devices for Facebooking are buying tablets, they don't need workstations. People who need workstations, they make money with it, they buy good workstations, Macbook Pro for example. I can't imagine myself working on any Windows laptop professionally, the price of Mac is well worth it if you need the machine to pay your rent.

So the PC's will continue to decline because people found they don't need them for entertainment anymore. That will by default increase the Mac market share as people who buy Mac's buy them mostly for working.

I bet more people pay their rent using Windows than they do with OSX.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Oh please! The Metro mail app is weak, the Metro pictures app is very weak, the Metro video player is bad and the Metro music player is horrible. Even the iLife apps that shipped with Leopard are far superior to Metro's versions.

Additionally you cannot easily re-size and over-lap Metro apps without buying yet another how-to-make-W8-suck-less app to run them on the desktop.

The Windows Live Essentials apps have the potential to fill the gap. Unfortunately other than Mail they are mired down in a decade-old lack of function and visual ugliness.

I use Photo Gallery on W8. It is not too bad but it looks like a barely disguised File Explorer. Neither it nor Movie Maker are even close to iPhoto and iMovie in visual beauty and depth of features.

If Microsoft want to sell Windows via OEM computers it needs to include features that are instantly usable to customers.

Given that the iOS mail app can't even add attachments, or that you have to attach items from the app the file is in (and therefore can't attach different formats of files) I much prefer the metro mail app.

Now, if that app was the mail app of choice on the desktop version, then sure. I'd be a little upset.

But as another poster has said, that's total hyperbole. You can always download better mail apps, or go through your browser.

As for iLife . . . . I can't speak to them. I don't play with those apps at all, so them not having Windows equivalents or having to pay more for them is moot. If I did need a "lite" photo/video editor I might go with Adobe's Elements apps, but again, I can't speak on them.

All-in-all. On a strictly usability standpoint, I can use the Metro apps just as well as the iOS and MacOSX apps, with more points going to the MacOSX and Metro apps.

I may have need for an iPad in the future, but right now not having to limit myself to one brand for everything in a take-it-or-leave-it approach is a breath of fresh air. There are SO MANY ways to do simple things, instead of one way that should serve you fine, but if it doesn't you never really needed to do it in the first place.

 

[iBug2]

Yes, you could host large files offsite but we're still a LONG way from being able to push bandwidth for something like a 4K display over the internet (a local network doesn't apply here)–my own home setup couldn't support even my 1080p monitor (even if it can stream 1080p television with little difficulty).

I don't think we are a long way from that. 15 years maybe.

But seriously, I think I see what you are saying now. I'll just say Teamviewer-style and I think you will get what I mean. It certainly wouldn't be a problem for 99.999...% of home users that we can easily agree on (although the bandwidth isn't even close to ready in some areas, but that's really an infrastructure problem).

Right now I do most of my math calculations using wolframalpha.com instead of using my own copy of Mathematica installed in my computer. Why? It's faster that way. Wolframalpha understands natural language (something a home computer cannot do) so I don't have to formulate the problem with a specific syntax, and that saves time. And the calculation time is very fast as well.

 

[Renzatic]

I don't think we are a long way from that. 15 years maybe.

In computer terms, 15 years is the coming and going of a dinosaur age.

edit: I'll also add being able to stream 4k content is a lot closer than you think. We'll assume that a 2 hour Blu-Ray quality movie is about 30GB. You could stream that on a 34 Mbps connection. Now we'll assume again that 4k movies are roughly 4x the size, or 120GB per 2 hours. To be able to stream that, you'd have to have a 133 Mbps internet connection.

That's high, but not 15 years away high. I've got fiber running to my house, and I could access 100 Mbps just by calling up my telco and asking for it. On top of that, Google and a bunch of other companies are already experimenting with gigabit fiber in a few select cities. So the bandwidth needed to stream 4k isn't all that far away. I'd say in a year or two, most cities will have access to that much bandwidth, and in about 4-6 years, it'll be widely available and affordable.

 

[gnasher729]

Personally I am happy that Macs are selling well. And "well" is an arbitrary term.

But these quarterly charts of comparing Macs to Wintels really doesn't mean much other than the point of what marketshare of ALL personal computers is Apple, Dell, HP, etc. Trying to compare units sold and year over year is pretty irrelevant especially since Mac, while a personal computer, doesn't run the same OS as Wintels.

Folks also need to remember that growing 28% is a lot EASIER if you are selling less to begin with. For example, if you sell 5 cookies this quarter and sell 7 cookies next quarter, WOW!...you sold about 50% more cookies! Congrats! But when your friend is selling 5000 cookies in Q1 and then 7000 cookies so still get about 50% growth, that's a lot more UNITS out there to make up MARKETSHARE...and if his town is only 8,000 people, his cookies are clearly the winner. The 5 or 7 cookies that the first guy sells pales in comparison to the 5000...or even 500...or even 50.

Good job for keeping the Mac line alive, Apple...but these comparisons are just pointless.

Apple sales up by 28 percent.
Some people seriously hurt by it.

I don't quite understand your discussion of cookies. Apple has been selling over two million Macs in the USA alone in the quarter, probably about 4.5 million or so world wide.

 

[TallManNY]

I agree... but the story people are commenting on is about U.S. sales.

Oh. Well definitely at the top in the US when you include tablets. Especially since Amazon doesn't make a PC. But we know the US is basically going to be all Apple fairly soon outside of work and gamers. Not only are the sales strong, but each Mac is a sale of a computer with a five plus year life cycle. While PCs probably average in the four or less year life. Same thing but worse for smartphones. An android from three years ago is probably in the trash or headed there. An iPhone three years old has been handed down or resold to someone.

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I bet more people pay their rent using Windows than they do with OSX.

Ha ha. You are right by a factor of ten. Windows is still 90% of all work machines I would guess. Maybe more like 95%. But those office machines are bare bones and headed south once ssd is standard. Mcsft still makes a ton of money. But the writing is on the wall. And windows 8 was a gamble which doesn't look to pay off.

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Apple sales up by 28 percent.
Some people seriously hurt by it.

I don't quite understand your discussion of cookies. Apple has been selling over two million Macs in the USA alone in the quarter, probably about 4.5 million or so world wide.

If those numbers are right. Idc has vastly different numbers in their estimate. Who knows which is right.

 

[Renzatic]

And windows 8 was a gamble which doesn't look to pay off.

It's been doing decently. It's not selling a billion trillion copies an hour or breaking any sales records, but so far, it's sold steady enough. Or in other words, it's not a failure, but it hasn't been the roaring success MS hoped it'd be, either.

And yeah, the iPad and Android tablets are at least partially to blame for that.

 

[gnasher729]

I use Windows 8, and after the initial shock, I ended up liking it alright. I wouldn't call it perfect, but a lot of its supposed failings are blown way out of proportion.

There are different kinds of computer users. There are people out there who can't handle Windows 8 whatsoever. Worst is that there is zero discoverability. Which is a hurdle that you seem to have overcome, but many people don't. And then they hate it.

There may have been a slight shift in psychology. Windows was always very good at making people think they are stupid if they can't figure out things (which is strangely different from MacOS X. Never heard anyone saying they are too stupid to use MacOS X, instead they blame the software if they can't get something to work). But somehow that seems to have changed with Windows 8. Maybe because there is less information visible. With previous versions, there was so much to see people felt it was their fault for not finding things. Windows 8 seems to hide things.

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If those numbers are right. Idc has vastly different numbers in their estimate. Who knows which is right.

What's strange is that IDC seems to _always_ have lower estimates for Apple. I'm really wondering if someone has kept track of this - last ten years Gartner estimates, IDC estimates, and Apple actual numbers.

 

[Renzatic]

There are different kinds of computer users. There are people out there who can't handle Windows 8 whatsoever. Worst is that there is zero discoverability. Which is a hurdle that you seem to have overcome, but many people don't. And then they hate it.

There may have been a slight shift in psychology. Windows was always very good at making people think they are stupid if they can't figure out things (which is strangely different from MacOS X. Never heard anyone saying they are too stupid to use MacOS X, instead they blame the software if they can't get something to work). But somehow that seems to have changed with Windows 8. Maybe because there is less information visible. With previous versions, there was so much to see people felt it was their fault for not finding things. Windows 8 seems to hide things.

I'll admit that MS loves burying stuff underneath stuff which is underneath more stuff, and they have an even bigger thing for hiding stuff in plain sight, like it's an easter egg just waiting to be discovered. But most of the changes to Windows 8 are literally stuff you only have to be shown once to figure out, and you'll never forget about it again. I mean all the settings and everything are all tucked into the bottom left corner.

So could it be better? Hell yeah, it could. Win 8.1 went a fair way fixing it, but it still has more ways to go. And hell, the settings menu is obtuse even at the best of times.

But is it an unusable mess? No, it's not. You just gotta learn literally a couple new things.