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I think I've had a change of heart on the ARM Macs.
- Thread starter scaramoosh
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Ah, Ok. Apple’s quarterly results aren’t in unit sales because they no longer report unit sales. That’s why the numbers were different.
Financial Statement
Since the ”Six Month’s Ended” number is not the first half of the year, it’s the six months PRIOR to the date on the report, that’s including Q4 of last year where the analysts indicate Apple sold over 6 million Mac systems, more sold than in any previous quarter. The report coming in a few weeks (and the follow-on analyst reports) will indicate how well they’re doing for the first six months of 2020. Analyst numbers indicate they sold just under 4 million Macs in Q1 of 2020 and almost 6 million in Q1 of 2020. Because for two years, Q1 has been their weakest quarter (the last Q1 that unit sales came closest was in 2015), you may be right in that unit sales could be set for another spike!
Prior to 2010, people did not choose between a Mac and iPad. The iPad didn’t exist, and unit sales of the Mac were on a steady incline. Around 2011-12, Mac unit sales plateaued between 4-6 million per quarter. Aside from one quarter in 2020, they haven’t sold outside that range. We may be ready to have a breakout, we’ll see with Apple’s announcement at the end of July.
Great! You’ve got an opinion, I’ve got an opinion and time will tell the tale! That’s what’s fun about the forum
Oh, and I got the quarter by quarter numbers to do the 2021 YTD comparisons. And since Apple price points don't wildly fluctuate the dollar volumes ARE indicative pretty well of unit volume. So we can see 2019 was better than 2018 (upward trend) but not rocketing at 2.2%. Then 2020 wound up 11% up over 2019. And so far this year they are up 42% 2021 versus 2020.
I decided to do the quarter by quarter number work so I could see things by calendar year instead of fiscal year.
I decided to do the quarter by quarter number work so I could see things by calendar year instead of fiscal year.
That was an interesting video (I watched it earlier). iCaveDave speculated about this around WWDC based on the number of chips being multiples of ten but the addition of TSMC's fabric fills in a few holes. I don't see why Qualcomm can't use TSM's fabric as well though.
The Apr, May, June 2021 numbers haven’t been reported yet, though, have they? Maybe I’m misunderstanding.
I’m hoping in the next quarterly results we might get a breakdown of how many higher end systems were purchased (maybe not likely, but still hoping!
). This could be similar to the iPhone super cycle where there were a great number of folks waiting until the M1 to replace their daily drivers. If these are also folks that have been users for awhile, it could be that they expect to use this one for awhile, too. As a result, higher end configurations may have indeed been a greater portion of all devices sold. Combine that with everything else that was going on in 2020 and you get the spikes beyond spikes!The Apr, May, June 2021 numbers haven’t been reported yet, though, have they? Maybe I’m misunderstanding.
I’m hoping in the next quarterly results we might get a breakdown of how many higher end systems were purchased (maybe not likely, but still hoping!
It's a tough time for customers looking for higher-end machines.
I've been waiting for M1X for several months and just gave in to the M1. What if you only want one machine or you can't go to Apple Silicon yet? Do you buy an iMac 27, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro 16 and worry about how long Apple will support x86 systems? I don't as I'm comfortable running old operating systems but many are required to run supported operating systems at work or need to to run newer versions of application software.
Apple has mainly traded sideways for the past year indicating a lot of uncertainty. Phones are, of course, more important to profits.
We may not see the M1X until November 2021 (would make sense being a year after the first launch) but I can imagine a lot of M1X sales, especially if performance is what I expect it will be.
AAPL reports financials in a couple of weeks - I will at that time update the flow so we can see a clearer picture.
I concur that it is possible a lot of people decided to replace older Mac daily drivers with M1. But the trend also suggests that M1 has sparked interest outside of the Mac world and people (like students) looking for machines for college and such are getting the M1 MBA for example (I know two such who ditched their Dells for MBAs).
I concur that it is possible a lot of people decided to replace older Mac daily drivers with M1. But the trend also suggests that M1 has sparked interest outside of the Mac world and people (like students) looking for machines for college and such are getting the M1 MBA for example (I know two such who ditched their Dells for MBAs).
Agreed, I’d even imagine there’s a good number of folks that bought the first M1 last year that will be selling/keeping it and buying a higher performance system this year. I would NOT be surprised if Apple took full advantage of their “two year” time frame and shipped the final, highest end systems right before or at WWDC 2022!
Agreed, I’d even imagine there’s a good number of folks that bought the first M1 last year that will be selling/keeping it and buying a higher performance system this year. I would NOT be surprised if Apple took full advantage of their “two year” time frame and shipped the final, highest end systems right before or at WWDC 2022!
I plan on getting an M1X Mini and an m1X 16 and will give my M1 mini to my wife to replace her 2018 mini. I also expect that a lot of people that bought M1 systems to kick the tires to do the same thing. I don't think that there will be problems of supply as there's usually a healthy second-hand market in Macs.
This is so easy to disprove that it's almost comical...
1Q 2021 is the November-December quarter of calendar year 2020. But the growth is not limited to one quarter - Q2 2021 also saw sustained growth in sales of the Mac:
So the "stagnant" Mac platform sold nearly 2x as much in Q2 of 2021 than it die in Q2 of 2020 - that is traditionally the weakest quarter for most companies given that it occurs after the holiday shopping season. Keep in mind that through two quarters of FY 2021, Mac sales have already doubled the total sales from FY 2020. If you look at the trend from FY2019 through today as it pertains to Mac sales, it is a continual upward slope, which indicates growth rather than stagnation.
Exactly. And even though some of this could be argued it was due to covid, it wouldn’t necessarily explain why the Mac market share has increased as well. If the upward trend for macs was solely due to people working from home, I would assume that the entire pc market would rise relatively at the same pace. I’d also assume that the rise in pc sales due to covid would have calmed down by now - so Mac doing so well in 2021 makes me think it’s more than just covid work from home. I’d wager it’s also a testament to the M1 macs as well.
Once you have more data points than 3-4, a trend can certainly be derived. For example, like the 20 year trend that shows, from 2002 to, say 2012, Mac sales growing steadily then ONLY selling between 15 to 20 million a year since then. That’s NOT a bad business to have, and half of those are going to folks that have never used a Mac before, which is really needed.
If Mac sales rose WIHOUT the overriding needs driven by the pandemic, it’d be something worth considering as a trend breaker. If Mac sales grew while PC sales were dropping (which has happened a few times) that’s also worthy of significant note. However, once pandemic level needs are met WILL the sales stay up? Based on the nature of the Mac, I’d guess that 8 quarters of sales that yield a consistent 20 + million a year would be a stark difference from the 20 years prior and an opportunity to recognize a distinct growth situation.
However, if unit sales for future quarters recede to the normal 4-6 million range, then that would tend to confirm the already in place 20 plus year broader pattern. There would have been a few periods where Macs sold better than normal, of course, but the trend of yearly sales between 15 to 20 million would simply be reinforced.
Example:
unit sales rose from 2013 to 2015
2013 16.34 m
2014 18.91 m
2015 20.59 m
Growth? No, just the normal fluctuations between 15 to 20 million, which had been going on since 2011 and continued in subsequent years.
2016 18.48 m
2017 19.25 m
2018 18.21 m
Now, from 2003 to 2012? ABSOLUTELY growth, year over year, consistent and rising. Are we about to see that now? We’d need at least 2 additional years of higher than normal unit sales to even start to say this is another 9 year growth pattern.
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Your analysis falls into the trap of viewing Apple in a silo rather than looking at the industry as a whole. The PC market as a whole has been either flat or in a slight decline since 2011, yet Apple was continually outpacing the industry as a whole even during that time. This observed trend would lead to the conclusion that the overall slump in the industry affected Apple to a lesser extent than any other company. The other factor that plays into this trend of the Mac outpacing the industry as a whole is the rest of Apple's ecosystem, including the iPhone, iPad, and their services portfolio also seeing growth. This is what differentiates the Mac from anything else on the market. Tools such as Handoff, Continuity, and Sidecar wouldn't be possible without Apple's work to position iOS, iPad OS and Mac OS as three separate components of their ecosystem. Even if other vendors did cobble something similar to run on top of Windows or ChromeOS, it would be cludgy and prone to breaking for any one of a number of reasons.
Full RAM is like a full fridge. I don’t really see the problem unless you expect hundreds of guests.
Several large watermelons would fill most refrigerators.
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But, I’m not analyzing, though. It’s a fact that Apple, in their history, has sold over 6 million Macs in a quarter exactly one time. You can analyze why that was, how some of those bettered the industry, and some of those were worse than the industry. I’m just repeating the facts.
Apple’s unit sales rose steadily until 2012 and have held steady between 15 to 20 million since then. Not able to break out of that band, but, more importantly, not selling lower than that band. In every year since 2012, the unit sales of one year differed from the prior year by less than 5 million units.
If Apple sells 40 million units this year (unlikely) then I’ll say they sold 40 million this year, no analysis required. And if they sell 45 million the next year, 50 million the next year 53 million the year after that and 56 million after that, then, REGARDLESS of if they’re doing better or worse than the rest of the industry, that’s usually defined as growth. Even if their marketshare is only 4 percent and decreasing because the ENTIRE market is blasting into the stratosphere that’s STILL a growth in units sold year over year. Saying that would be growth isn’t even analysis. Numbers increase consistently year over year, that’s just growth.
It's ironic that you claim in the first sentence that you're not analyzing, then give two paragraphs of your own analysis of Mac sales numbers (i.e., applying meaning to facts). Given that both raw sales numbers and market share have been increasing, that alone demonstrates a trend that is working in Apple's favor. Furthermore, given that Apple has outpaced the PC industry as a whole in growth YoY for both FY 2020 and through the first two quarters of FY 2021, this does denote a trend, although for how long Apple can continue this momentum is not known by anyone. How many quarters Apple sold more than 6 million Macs is completely irrelevant and immaterial to this discussion. If this was merely a result of the pandemic spiking sales numbers for the PC industry as a whole, Apple's growth should have fallen in line with everyone else, yet it grew more than anyone else in the industry. The other piece of the puzzle is understanding what markets are driving Apple's growth. Gartner (the only ones I can see that break out US shipments from the world wide numbers) show that YoY sales of the Mac increased by 31.3% worldwide and 32% in the US for Q4 2020. The closest competitor was Lenovo, whose domestic (US growth) was higher than Apple's (40.8% vs 32%), yet trailed Apple in the worldwide numbers by an even larger margin (21.3% vs 31.3%). This shows two things: Lenovo's performance in the US really drove its overall sales numbers for the quarter and Apple's performance was relatively steady across the board.
No meaning at all, at least no meaning was intended. But, the reader can always find a meaning that’s not what the writer intended. I mean, I could state that “Apple has sold Macs” and if someone wants to perceive that as analysis, they could, I guess.
That is correct. BUT, one CAN predict that the likelihood for them selling between 15 to 20 million or higher is quite high. Selling lower than 15 million units for 2021 would surprise me.
Yes, since at least 2012, relatively steady, between 15-20 million.
A knife would pare down those watermelons nicely. Or you might need a bigger fridge.
Weird because I use the CRAP out of my M1 Macbook Air with 8 GB--30 tabs open, sleep and then awake, reboot hardly ever, run everything I throw at it. Works fine. It's almost boring how good it is until I try to use something else.
My wife likes to buy whole watermelons from Costco and she typically cuts it in half and uses up half a shelf. Then there are other pieces which she puts on another shelf. The thing is that we store things in the fridge and I usually don't buy as much stuff that has to be stored when she does that. A better solution would be to buy slices, or eighths which the supermarket sells. But she likes the cost savings of getting whole watermelons.
I've thought about getting a mini-fridge for the basement but those things are usually grossly inefficient.