Two major market intelligence firms have released PC market reports on the same day, with dramatically differing pictures of how Mac shipments fared last quarter.
Depending on which company you believe, Mac shipments either grew by 9.3% year-on-year, or fell by almost twice that …
Canalys estimates that Q4 2023 Mac shipments totalled just over 6.5M, giving Apple a 10.1% market share, and representing 9.3% growth on the same quarter in the previous year.
IDC, in contrast, has shipments of just 5.7M, for an 8.5% market share, and a year-on-year fall of 18.4%.
More broadly, the two companies can’t even agree on how the global desktop and laptop market as a whole is faring. Canalys says it grew:
The worldwide PC market ended its streak of annual shipment declines in the last quarter of 2023, posting a modest year-on-year growth of 3%. Total shipments of desktops and notebooks rose to 65.3 million units. Shipments of notebooks hit 51.6 million units, up 4% from 2022, while desktop shipments landed at 13.7 million units, declining 1%.
IDC says it continued to decline:
Global shipments of traditional PCs marginally surpassed expectations in the fourth quarter of 2023 (4Q23) with nearly 67.1 million PCs shipped, down 2.7% from the prior year, according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Despite the improved results, 4Q23 was the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year shipment volume contraction.
Both firms rely on a range of methods to form their estimates – such as surveying wholesalers and retailers. This is especially difficult in the case of Apple, which makes a lot of direct sales.
There’s also a broader complication in the PC market as a whole: to quote Apple’s iPad ads, ‘What is a computer?’ While Apple distinguishes Macs from iPads, other brands offer convertible products which can be harder to define, and could be considered either laptops or tablets.
Where the two firms do agree, however, is that the market has bottomed-out, and this year will see the sector return to growth.
As for Apple, we’ll get a good steer when the company announces its earnings report on February 1. While it doesn’t release sales numbers, it does break down revenue by product category – including for Mac.
Photo by Ash Edmonds on Unsplash
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