Worldwide Mac Sales Hold Steady as PC Market Sees Shipments Decline 9.6% in Q1 2016

[DevNull0]

Cook was making inroads with IBM. He really needs to keep pushing forward with the business market. There's definitely demand there for getting rid of the PCs and using Macs. It's become vastly more acceptable and wanted.

There is no space in the business world for machines that have to update on the vendor's schedule and run the OS version the vendor tells you is the latest.

If El Capitan breaks some custom app an intern wrote 10 years ago and Apple won't let the company buy a new computer with Mountain Lion that will support that App, then Apple is just not viable in the enterprise. And on a larger scale, if everyone at the company is using Mountain Lion and they need to add new machines, they better also be Mountain Lion until the company is ready to migrate. You don't force all your users onto a new OS with all the transition pains when it's not necessary.

And it should go without saying these older OSes need security updates for the enterprise clients.

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Overall it looks like the winners here are Apple and Dell. Apple is seeing slightly more worldwide sales and slightly less US sales. Dell the reverse.

We all know why Apple is doing so well. But Dell? How are they still doing so well?

Dell offers everything from Ultrabooks to solid business machines with lots of ports and performance to high end gaming machines. They offer $300 flimsy plastic laptops for students and $3000 business laptops with a more solid build than Apple. They offer fairly cheap displays and 4k displays at a premium price and they offer them in Matte and Glossy. They offer laptops with user swappable batteries, ram, and hard drives. They offer laptops with optical drives and without.

Apple offers cute little ultrabooks with a pretty nice build and all the performance traded off in the name of size and cuteness. Apples are great for their market segment, but they only target a very narrow slice of the market while Dell makes something for everyone.

 

[the8thark]

Dell offers everything from Ultrabooks to solid business machines with lots of ports and performance to high end gaming machines. They offer $300 flimsy plastic laptops for students and $3000 business laptops with a more solid build than Apple. They offer fairly cheap displays and 4k displays at a premium price and they offer them in Matte and Glossy. They offer laptops with user swappable batteries, ram, and hard drives. They offer laptops with optical drives and without.

Apple offers cute little ultrabooks with a pretty nice build and all the performance traded off in the name of size and cuteness. Apples are great for their market segment, but they only target a very narrow slice of the market while Dell makes something for everyone.

Thanks.
Does anyone to this kind of analysis for shipments but only in the say $1k+ range? I believe Apple would have a much larger % slice of that pie.

 

[DevNull0]

How can you "hate" OS X? That's like hating tidiness, common sense and peace.

I like OS X. It is still my primary OS and I feel out of place on anything else. IMO OS X is the best OS out there so, please take this post in the right context.

The latest versions do drive me crazy a bit. Little things like Safari by default not displaying the full URL for the sake of that tidiness. I still haven't figured out a way to tell what path I'm in when I have a folder open. If I search in spotlight it can find files and open the folder, but it can't tell me where they are? How, in 2016 is there still no way to uninstall Apps? I still have crap in mission control from Apps I tried to delete.

Each version seems to move more and more towards the limitations of iToys and doesn't offer any more modern functionality besides iToy and iCould integration. It's like it's moving backwards in what it's capable of doing.

For myself, I'm not planning on dumping OS X any time soon, but I can certainly see the OP's point of view.
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Thanks.
Does anyone to this kind of analysis for shipments but only in the say $1k+ range? I believe Apple would have a much larger % slice of that pie.

If you're going to do that, why not limit it to say the $1k+ range and sub 3 pound range. I bet Apple dominates that slice of the pie.

Personally I prefer to share the whole pie than dominate one small slice. Especially since my choice of computer no longer exists in Apple's little slice. But whatever floats your boat.

 

[the8thark]

If you're going to do that, why not limit it to say the $1k+ range and sub 1.36kg range. I bet Apple dominates that slice of the pie.

Personally I prefer to share the whole pie than dominate one small slice. Especially since my choice of computer no longer exists in Apple's little slice. But whatever floats your boat.

Fixed your typo.

And I agree, but it's nice to know your market share in your sector as well as the entire market as a while.

 

[MisterK]

It makes no sense to call the iMac the "Mac" when all the other Macs are also Macs. OK I know they did this with the watch, but it still makes no sense.

I really don't think it's that crazy. You have a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. You could also have a Mac and a Mac Pro. It's actually nicer.

 

[Loge]

I really don't think it's that crazy. You have a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. You could also have a Mac and a Mac Pro. It's actually nicer.

Yes that would work, except that the generic name is also Mac, so it can't also be the name of a subset of them. If someone refers to their "Mac", how would you know whether it's the new iMac or anything from the last 30 years that used the Mac name? It's silly that they did this with the watch.

 

[TallManNY]

What I have seen (again I have to caveat this as anecdotal) is that the workplace is increasingly providing employees with laptops. The younger workers seem to be okay taking the work laptop home and using it. They do not own their own. I see that more lately. I also know of a few young people that are fresh out of school that rely on they phone for everything and do not have a computer at home. My daughter the artist is a perfect example. she is totally content with the phone and the apple TV. I gave her an old macbook so she technically has one in her place, but I don't think she uses it.

Contrast that with older and maybe more affluent folks. Most have a computer at work and one at home. In my case, My wife and I each have a work provided laptop, a personal computer (her macbook air, me imac), an ipad and an iphone (and the apple watch too). So, where as the older generations have multiple devices per individual, the younger seem to be okay with less devices per individual.

I agree that trends around the replacement cycle are extending, but I also think that for the same reasons you point out (devices are faster more powerful and don't run out of gas as quickly) there is a trend towards less devices per person. I wish someone would do a survey to validate this, but in my corner of the world, I totally believe that both trends are real -- less devices and longer replacement cycles (the same is coming to the phone by the way).

I can see this. I bring my work laptop home on the weekend in part because there are certain servers that I cannot access from my home computer for security reasons. The result is that I no longer have a home Mac laptop. (I do however have an iPad with a keyboard and a Toshiba Chromebook, but the Chromebook is just the gadget guy in me wanting to drop $200 and see what that OS can do (side note, not a bad device at all) I really have no use for it. I do work on the weekend from local coffee shops, so I use a laptop. But I carry the work laptop. The iMac gets a bit less use every year as the iPad Air 2 is probably just as powerful as my 2011 iMac and the Apps are cheaper and in some ways better.

 

[2457282]

I can see this. I bring my work laptop home on the weekend in part because there are certain servers that I cannot access from my home computer for security reasons. The result is that I no longer have a home Mac laptop. (I do however have an iPad with a keyboard and a Toshiba Chromebook, but the Chromebook is just the gadget guy in me wanting to drop $200 and see what that OS can do (side note, not a bad device at all) I really have no use for it. I do work on the weekend from local coffee shops, so I use a laptop. But I carry the work laptop. The iMac gets a bit less use every year as the iPad Air 2 is probably just as powerful as my 2011 iMac and the Apps are cheaper and in some ways better.

Ah ha! And there was another poster on a separate thread that told me his brother lives on his phone and has no computer. I really do see this trend and I believe there will be a point soon where the tablet starts overtaking the laptop which has already overtaken the desktop. I am too old for a phone to be the device i use to interact with the world, but a light tablet with a keyboard cover - that I see in my future as the replacement for 2012 imac.

 

[Winni]

Because less people are buying them.

Yes. Less people are buying PCs - but those people are not buying Macs instead. Apple's number of shipped units has not increased, the company's market share only increased because the market itself shrank. It's a quite interesting phenomenon - and according to these numbers, Apple's in the same boat as Dell.

 

[TallManNY]

Ah ha! And there was another poster on a separate thread that told me his brother lives on his phone and has no computer. I really do see this trend and I believe there will be a point soon where the tablet starts overtaking the laptop which has already overtaken the desktop. I am too old for a phone to be the device i use to interact with the world, but a light tablet with a keyboard cover - that I see in my future as the replacement for 2012 imac.

For better or worse the fact that Apps are basically free on iOS makes the OS very compelling. Also I can do things like access my cable TV through the TimeWarner iOS App but I can't on my Mac. I've been thinking about the desk space I can reclaim if I just got rid of my iMac. Of course there are things I will always need it for. Or at least I think I will. But should I buy a $2,700 iMac this year or a $1,200 iPad Pro with pencil and keyboard? The iPad Pro is very compelling as is the $1,500 in savings.

 

[Michael Scrip]

That's good to hear that Mac market share is increasing.

Yes... Mac market share increased by 1% last quarter.

But the entire market decreased by almost 10%

That's the problem with comparing percentage-based calculations. It all depends on the size of the entire market at any given time.

You may "gain" market share... but it's not really impressive if the market itself is smaller than it was before.

I'm honestly more interested in actual Mac sales. We'll have to see if Apple sold more Macs in Q1 2016 than they did a year ago.

IDC estimated Apple sold more Macs... while Gartner estimated they sold fewer Macs.

Apple will tell us the correct answer at the next earnings call.

Though I'm not sure Mac sales will have increased... I think people are still waiting for upgraded laptops from Apple.

 

[throAU]

All true, but he's not really comparing 5400 vs 7200 rpm HDDs. We're speaking about the system volume in a $1000+ computer. No SSD is simply not acceptable in this day and age. Unlike 16GB iPhones, 5400rpm iMacs are actually crippled, meaning they run a lot slower than it needs to be. And Apple owns the Fusion Drive technology to speed them up at virtually no cost.

Ah so its basically a cost whine.

It is what it is. If you want a budget mac you get one with a spinner. If you don't you spec fusion or SSD.

Yes, stupid to buy a spinning drive machine in 2016, but if people aren't going to buy them, apple will drop them. People are buying them.

 

[WigWag Workshop]

Also, take in to account, that a lot of big companies are moving away from desktops and laptops for VDI terminals. We already moved almost 100,000 folks to VDI.

 

[s2mikey]

Yes. Less people are buying PCs - but those people are not buying Macs instead. Apple's number of shipped units has not increased, the company's market share only increased because the market itself shrank. It's a quite interesting phenomenon - and according to these numbers, Apple's in the same boat as Dell.

Well said. The PC market as a whole is down. Period. For every person I know that just bought an actual PC, I can find about 10 that got a tablet, phone or somthing else.

 

[Gudi]

Ah so its basically a cost whine.

No it's a speed whine. You can hear me complain about iMacs are too expensive anyway. I don't care about the $100 extra for Fusion Drive, it's the base price which is appalling. But even if all desktop Macs would be cut in half price wise, some people would still buy the crippled budget model and that's a shame. You can't buy a Mac laptop with an HDD anymore, except for this one Non-Retina MacBook Pro which hasn't been updated in the last 1400 days. But you can buy a 180 days young 4K or 5K iMac and be stuck with a spinner.

Yes, stupid to buy a spinning drive machine in 2016, but if people aren't going to buy them, apple will drop them.

It's also stupid to sell a spinning drive machine in 2016, if you want to have satisfied users and recurring customers. Buying them is stupid and selling them is stupid as well, because they are stupid computers, which shouldn't exist any longer.

 

[jsalda]

Seriously, people here act like apple has to pump out the newest processors in their line instead of waiting for an overall better package. What a rat race.

I seem to remember when Apple would announce new PowerPC processors ahead of or alongside with IBM's announcement. They should get back to that.

 

[Palladium SG]

But but but, they don't have a 100% marketshare and profits? Apple is doomed.

 

[Popeye206]

Minor advancements in all the generations of the i5/i7 CPU's. There's been nothing earth shattering during that time. The biggest advancements have been with the integrated graphics.

A 2 year refresh is ridiculous and a waste of money.

My upgrade came a year ago... compared to my MacBook before, this one is faster, lighter and thinner. When I pick up my Macbook that was the same model as my previous Macbook it feels like a brick compared to this one. For someone that carries one of these around all the time, it was well worth the upgrade.

 

[uid15]

Desktop Macs are going nowhere, and any attempt to indicate that they will be "replaced" by iPad or iPhone are the symptom of technologically obsessed delusion & promotion of this nonsensical "mobile or bust" mindset. Even a MacBook Pro which is portable and mobile, used in its laptop mode, cannot compete with a PROPER, ergonomically optimal desktop Mac setup with properly height-adjusted monitors, desk, full sized keyboard, mouse/trackpad and a comfortable, supportive chair. If you think an iPad in your hand can compete with that, I fear you are somewhat kidding yourself. Certainly you are able to do A LOT with iOS, but there's a very compelling list of reasons that Macs are still evolving and being produced, because you do NOT want to do ALL your work with fingertips and/or a stylus.

There will always be customers for Macs, just as there will always be customers for coffee beans and Gaggia espresso machines - we don't all want to make coffee from granules.