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Worldwide Mac Sales Remain Steady in 4Q 2016 Amid Continuing PC Market Decline

manu chao said:
There are two narratives about for example the long update cycle of the Mac Mini. One that the long cycle is deliberate because Apple thinks it makes more money overall by investing less in the Mac Mini, by using older and thus cheaper parts and by keeping the Mac Mini less attractive than the higher margin iMacs. The second is that it is not a question of money but simply human resources, including less attention given by the people making the decisions.

A separate Mac company might still decide that they make more money by not updating the Mac Mini regularly.
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Another reason to have a long cycle, at least for the Mac Pro, is potentially more stable software. Maybe by staying with known hardware, and newer processors aren't that much improved, they think they can give a better experience. I'm sure some people would rather have newer stuff but this is another way of looking it.
 
Pentium said:
I'm not after Ultra Portables, I was hoping to get a powerful up to date MacBook Pro 15, but I didn't like what Apple has just made.
new Dell XPS 15 is a very well made PC and with the last update, Kaby Lake, 32 DDR4, Nvidia 1050GTX and a great 4K screen is where I'm heading :)
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Good luck - Dell is not a "Well made PC". I'd use an Abacus before I bought a Dell.

I'm going the new Spectre x360 15" to replace my 11" MBA. Should be an awesome machine and what Apple should have made. We'll see when it gets here.
 
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itguy06 said:
Good luck - Dell is not a "Well made PC". I'd use an Abacus before I bought a Dell.

I'm going the new Spectre x360 15" to replace my 11" MBA. Should be an awesome machine and what Apple should have made. We'll see when it gets here.
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Thanks! HP Spectre 15 is available only with U series i7.
 
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neutralguy said:
Most misleading headline ever! Seems like HP and Dell have higher growth than Apple!
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Yea, like double the growth of Apple and 2-3 times units shipped. What other headline would you expect on a Mac-centric site :)
That modest PC market decline of 3.7% is offset by healthy gains of the top 4 at the expense of the large "Other" group. No Christmas bump for Apple is definitely a worry, but looks like Asus had a meltdown.
 
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20% decline in "Others". I guess Microsoft's Surface series wasn't the "Apple Killer" that the haters here claim.
 
WRChris said:
Steve Jobs doesn't run Apple anymore so I don't see the relevance in what you are trying to get across. Why would they not make the mini anymore? It sold well and I love mine, personally.
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Jobs was making a general point, a point that was part of the foundation he built Apple on, in particular during his second reign. Are you saying Jobs got all these fundamentals wrong or that what made Apple successful in the past doesn't mattter anymore?

Why would they continue a product that probably contributes less than 2% of their revenue and has a worse product margin than their other Macs (or would have if updated annually)? I am not saying that I don't see reasons for them to keep selling it. But I would love to see you admit that you can see reasons why they would want to cancel it. Because if you cannot see both sides, I don't think you have really thought about it.
 
Stella said:
Looks like HP, Lenovo and Dell are also doing well. Despite new MacBook Pros, Apple have only managed 1% increase in marketshare.

Dell have just introduced Kaby Lake laptops, so in the same period, Dell had older laptops.

While, online orders for MacBook Pro 2016 may have broken *online* sale records, in store sales must be slower.
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Been in plenty of Apple Stores all around the world, and they are all the same "Meh" and I walked out not buying anything.

Used to be I went into Apple store for software, but the Apps store + direct buying from Adobe, Microsoft, etc etc etc means I don't need to anymore.

The stores are becoming irrelevant.
 
itguy06 said:
Thanks but I know exactly of what I speak. I've been in this business far too long and despite your condescending nonsense I do know what I speak of. Thanks for playing, don't pass go, don't collect your $200.

Day in and day out, I use a "Business Class" Dell. For the past 6 years over 2 different Dell lines (Precision and Latitude) and they both have sucked and been quite unreliable. And before you scream "Corporate Image Issues", nope, dual boot from Windows and Linux hardware problems exist in both. The latest looks like it's been through a war with wearing paint, hinge that is loose, etc. That's not quality. Contrast that with my Macs which are used just as much and are older than that and have solid hinges and don't look that bad and are 100% functional.

Their servers are equal crap.

So yeah if you want a steaming pile of excrement buy a Dell. If you want a good computer, shop elsewhere. Dell has always been and always will be garbage.



The new HP Spectre x360 in 13" and 15" offer 4k. Lenovo Yoga 910 and 710 also offer 4k screens. All are excellent machines.
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Why do u think these two are better than Dell XPS 9560?
 
It is Gartner so you have to take it as a rough idea of possible truths. Not The Truth. I'm hoping Apple makes a real effort to get the Macs updated this year. At the same time it's so sad that so many people in the world have to use a Dell or HP. And those companies will always have more growth due to large corporate upgrades.
 
Eriamjh1138@DAN said:
I haven't bought because the new affordable portables are only a little or no faster than my 2011 MBP with an SSD And max ram.

I want a Retina display, but not at these pro prices.
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Exactly my reasoning.
I have a late 2011 15" mbp that is really fast and perfect for me. I wanted to get the same again but with a retina display.
It cost me £1500.
Now Apple want £2700 for their new 512GB 15".

I waited (for the last couple of years) for Apple to start fitting at least 1TB SSD's as standard, but that never happened. Every year I saw a push for more and more profits; squeezing the margins, driving the BTO. I figured I would just bite the bullet when they released their new mbp and possibly take the BTO hit for a 1TB SSD.
But then they released this for £2700.
I cannot comprehend this.
It's a bad joke that Apple wants us to take seriously and actually pay for.
Whatever.
I'm sad because I love my late 2011 15" mbp to bits and it would have been good to carry on with Apple, but, I know when a company has turned terrible and when to not give them my money.
 
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Larry-K said:
Looks like the top Three PC Makers posted gains.

Wouldn't be surprised if those came out of Apple's business.
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I know it did for me. Switched from a 2014 rMBP to a Lenovo for college. Mac doesn't offer anything over a decent PC for the massive price over a similar spec machine.
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manu chao said:
Make the following thought experiment: Assume, Apple had never introduced a Mac Mini. Would we complain about Apple as much as we do now (we still would complain about other things)?
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If they had never made the Mac Mini then their entry level computer would be 1500$ iMac stuffed with 500$ laptop parts. Even with the display, its not a 1500$ computer.
 
Just think of what sales could have been had Apple create a tbMBP that had a MagSafe, a battery that could handle 32 Gigs of ram, and could actually handle Pro related software without the battery dieting after a few hours.
People might say that computers are a niche group now and that Apple doesn't need to focus on it... but they did otherwise they wouldn't have created a toucher. What's pathetic is they ruined the MBP with the issues I just listed.
It's just a glorified email and web browsing laptop. I used to love Apple, but they lost their way.
 
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ocnitsa said:
The "Pro" line is also of interest to those of us who game (via Bootcamp or natively) who do care about having more performance than Web surfing. Some of us either prefer Mac OS for a working environment, are tethered to the ecosystem, or have work buying equipment for us (or all three). Yes yes I'm familiar with "if you game don't buy a MAC," but some of us do fit that category. We may be a niche group too, but many of us follow hardware in ways that don't fit the "common" usage you guys are describing.

Incidentally, in relation to Danny's comment about common usage it depends on your context. At the university I work at everyone's obviously always using laptops. Probably an even mix of Macs and PCs which speaks well of Macs. I'm transitioning between an iMac and MBP during the day routinely.

Anyway, the comment about 5K driving new/niche groups to laptops is relevant to what I was saying about gamers. Those of us willing to accept the trade offs of gaming on Macs (again, me through Bootcamp), would look forward to better GPU solutions because if they can drive 5K, we can turn down our resolution and get a passable experience gaming.

(Ready to get shredded for the sin of mentioning gaming and Macs in same sentence.)
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Not from me! I game in Bootcamp. I'm rather intently watching advances in eGPUs so I can have my 13" MBP and still be able to game adequately in 1440p. I got sick of maintaining a second computer and simply don't game enough anymore to justify keeping a gaming machine in working order. This was okay on my 15" MBP with a dGPU but integrated graphics are... well... terrible. However, I prefer 13" laptops. After getting used to the size/weight of a 13" Air, I didn't want anything larger. (In fact, even now, I'm a little jealous of the form factor on my wife's rMB, but it's too much of a compromise in its current state.)

What I really want is a nice hybrid setup: a super light laptop on the road but then I can sit at my desk, plug in to a dock that hooks into a GPU, ethernet, my external drives, peripherals, etc. Minus the GPU, I do this already and the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 isn't quite enough to do this well in conjunction with 5K, so for the foreseeable future this is going to take two ports, but whatever.

Here's the thing, I am definitely not a typical use case for Apple. I'm not necessarily their target customer but I understand that. For professional purposes, macOS and Apple laptops are without question the best options for me and professional needs trump gaming.

Thankfully, Thunderbolt 3 is an open standard and once the market warms up a bit, it's very likely we're going to have a lot of hardware options from other vendors to help fill this particular niche that Apple simply doesn't care about. (And frankly, there isn't much of a reason for them to care about it.)
 
Art Mark said:
It is Gartner so you have to take it as a rough idea of possible truths. Not The Truth. I'm hoping Apple makes a real effort to get the Macs updated this year. At the same time it's so sad that so many people in the world have to use a Dell or HP. And those companies will always have more growth due to large corporate upgrades.
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Not as sad as the current state of the Mac. Hence why people are looking for better options.
 
As I seem to do most every year, I contributed to the Mac sales growth :) I love my new 13" TB MBP.

Also, I'm a computer consultant and I think this past year I helped more of my customers migrate from Windows to Mac than any of my previous 22 years in business. And though I don't own one, I must say that the 27" 5K iMac probably has the nicest screen of any Desktop computer or laptop I've worked on--Mac or Windows. If it wasn't for the fact that I like to play games on my desktop, I'd own one. But, sadly, Windows 10 (which is not that great--7 was the best Windows) is really the only option to play the latest and greatest games.
 
CWallace said:
While it is de rigueur to blame Tim Cook, Steve Jobs also said he would "milk the Mac for all it was worth and then move on to the next thing". And considering how proud he was of the iPhone and the iPad, I imagine he felt those were "the next big thing", just as Tim appear to do.

So we might be in the same place if he had not passed on.
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Of course Steve viewed the iPhone/iPad as "the next big thing." But he also wouldn't release products that weren't compelling in some significant respect, nor would he offer products with seemingly inconsistent visions as to connectivity standards, etc. And Apple's products under Steve, while often somewhat expensive compared to the competition, never seemed like blatant money grabs.
 
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I hope they realise it's PC that is eating from the Mac and not iPad. Maybe they take their head out of their arses...but I doubt it :(
 
Dell rose 5.4%, Apple rose .5%, but damned if the spin machine isn't trying to turn this into a huge win for Tim.

Personally I'm not judging either way until I see the numbers for the holiday quarter, which is the first full one after the refreshed MBP lineup was released. If that sees only a marginal bump like this, you know things are bad in Cupertino.
 
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Michael Scrip said:
Fair point.

But the other guys might have had an increase in $300 laptops or other bargain basement computers.

Those are products that Apple doesn't even bother with. So it's difficult to do unit-sales growth comparisons when the companies sell vastly different types of units.

If you really want to compare growth... let's get everyone on the same page.

But you can't do that... since Apple is unlike all the other PC makers.

Imagine what HP's growth would have looked like if they ONLY sold $1,000 laptops last quarter. That would be the only way you could accurately compare HP to Apple.

But instead... we get this broad chart covering the entire PC market... whereas Apple only competes in the high-end segment.

And are we forgetting that everyone else is selling Windows computers... while Apple sells MacOS computers?

If you think about it... Apple has had 100% of the MacOS market for quite a while! :)
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If you think about it... Apple has had 0% share of the non MacOS desktop market for quite a while now! :D

I had a quick look at the worldwide share, Apple had about a 6.4-7.5% market share.
Looking at browser share I see Apple desktop recorded as having anywhere between 5% and 11% So people are using their browsers in fairly close ratio to market share.

Apple has (2016):
  • 0% share of the top 500 supercomputer (As does windows).
  • 0% share of the internet server market (I think).
  • 3.55% of the desktop gaming market. (Beefy machines usually for the other 97%, not $300 cheapies)
  • 11.5% of Mobile devices sales
  • 22% (2015) of tablet computer sales
  • 17.5% of webclient usage (5.22% Mac/12.28 iOS)
  • 3.5% share of browser usage via Safari
  • No 1 browser usage in Greenland (but no where else).
But I do agree you can paint any story you like with the use of stats.
 
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