Mac revenue up 14% year over year, PC shipments declined 5.1%

[senttoschool]

This translates to roughly 20% year-over-year growth for the Mac in terms of revenue if the PC market didn't have a decline.

While these are fantastic results, I think Apple can do much better.

I'm hoping that Apple releases a $750 - $799 Macbook SE (using current 13" Air), and add a 15" Macbook Air to the lineup. A Macbook SE would beat the living snot out of midrange PC laptops. In the US, iPhones own 53% of the market while Macs own just 14%. This means most iPhone users use Windows computers. For those people who were planning to buy a $500-$600 Windows laptop, it would be seriously enticing to pay a little extra for a Macbook SE and stay within the Apple ecosystem. And a 15" fanless Air would be a killer product for office workers, students, and even most developers.

I believe these two additions would greatly accelerate Mac's growth, which would benefit all Mac owners in terms of developer support.

Sources:

PC Shipments Begin to Slow Following Two Years of Strong Growth, According to IDC

IDC examines consumer markets by devices, applications, networks, and services to provide complete solutions for succeeding in these expanding markets.

www.idc.com

Apple Reports All-Time or March Quarter Revenue Records Across All Categories Except iPad

Apple today announced its earnings results for the second quarter of its 2022 fiscal year, including revenue of $97.3 billion, a new March...

www.macrumors.com

 

[leman]

Going forward, Mac market share will probably stabilise at around 20%, severely decimating the premium PC laptop market. And I agree, an 15" Air will be a good product for Apple, even if it means less sales for Pro/Max.

 

[thenewperson]

Going forward, Mac market share will probably stabilise at around 20%, severely decimating the premium PC laptop market. And I agree, an 15" Air will be a good product for Apple, even if it means less sales for Pro/Max.

If they can fit a 60-70WHr battery in that... ?

 

[Xiao_Xi]

How much has macOS market share increased?

 

[AltecX]

Going forward, Mac market share will probably stabilise at around 20%, severely decimating the premium PC laptop market. And I agree, an 15" Air will be a good product for Apple, even if it means less sales for Pro/Max.

Depends on how well the marketing around the "m1 level" Qualcomm chip does in the next year. Sure, the M2 will be out and M3 on the way, but something comparable to the M1 on power/battery would be a huge push for PC ultrabooks/tablets. To me something M1 comparable in a Surface Pro device would be a near perfect machine or my usage and eliminate my need to wonder if I should take the battery life device (Air) or the more functional device (Surface) or both.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

You’re comparing revenue to shipments, which are two very different metrics.

Revenue is the cash you receive before expenses. In this instance, Apple could have actually sold only a modest number of Macs but still made excellent revenue purely because of not having to pay Intel for their chips (only a basic example).

Shipments is the number of products wholesale - not the number sold to the end customer.

 

[Krevnik]

You’re comparing revenue to shipments, which are two very different metrics.

Revenue is the cash you receive before expenses. In this instance, Apple could have actually sold only a modest number of Macs but still made excellent revenue purely because of not having to pay Intel for their chips (only a basic example).

Shipments is the number of products wholesale - not the number sold to the end customer.

The only nit I have to pick with this is that not paying Intel doesn’t drive up revenue (because as you rightly point out, it’s before expenses, and buying chips are expenses). Higher ASP or selling more units does.

 

[Argon_]

Depends on how well the marketing around the "m1 level" Qualcomm chip does in the next year. Sure, the M2 will be out and M3 on the way, but something comparable to the M1 on power/battery would be a huge push for PC ultrabooks/tablets. To me something M1 comparable in a Surface Pro device would be a near perfect machine or my usage and eliminate my need to wonder if I should take the battery life device (Air) or the more functional device (Surface) or both.

If WoA continues to perform poorly and dev support lags, even a comparable chip won't favor the Windows PC.

 

[Rigby]

Going forward, Mac market share will probably stabilise at around 20%, severely decimating the premium PC laptop market.

That would be a pretty fantastic result. But Apple has a long way to go. According to the IDC article, their 1Q22 market share was 8.9% slightly up from 8.1% in the year before. Some PC makers such as Dell and Asus are also up despite the overall slowdown.

 

[JPack]

PC shipments are only down YoY because everyone and their dog was buying a PC last year. Everything that resembled a notebook was flying off the shelves, particularly Chromebooks.

This year, we're seeing things return to normal.

 

[Rigby]

Depends on how well the marketing around the "m1 level" Qualcomm chip does in the next year.

That chip will have close to zero impact on the PC market in the next few years (and possibly beyond).

 

[donawalt]

How much has macOS market share increased?

 

[darngooddesign]

To me something M1 comparable in a Surface Pro device would be a near perfect machine or my usage and eliminate my need to wonder if I should take the battery life device (Air) or the more functional device (Surface) or both.

They tried that a while back with Windows RT which wasn't too successful. There were complaints abut the lack of software, but the market may not have been ready for it back then; touch-focused Windows was still a pretty new thing. Could be different now if the ARM Windows 11 is really pushed.

 

[pshufd]

Going forward, Mac market share will probably stabilise at around 20%, severely decimating the premium PC laptop market. And I agree, an 15" Air will be a good product for Apple, even if it means less sales for Pro/Max.

I have an M1 Pro 16 and I can heartily say that the M1 CPU/GPU would have been fine with a bigger screen and less weight. I love my MBP 16 but it's overkill. Apple would have more in sales because they would expand the market. Those looking at an LG or Dell XPS 15 could take another look at the MacBook Air 15 or 16.

 

[senttoschool]

You’re comparing revenue to shipments, which are two very different metrics.

Revenue is the cash you receive before expenses. In this instance, Apple could have actually sold only a modest number of Macs but still made excellent revenue purely because of not having to pay Intel for their chips (only a basic example).

Shipments is the number of products wholesale - not the number sold to the end customer.

That's all the data I had available. I was well aware.

Many companies don't break down their sales to only personal computers. And Dell is a private company so there's no data. If you want to do better, feel free.

 

[doboy]

That's all the data I had available. I was well aware.

Many companies don't break down their sales to only personal computers. And Dell is a private company so there's no data. If you want to do better, feel free.

Then you shouldn't have made the comparison. Also why do you think Apple cares about the market share when they are raking in the profits? They already have the base Air and Mac Mini and lower priced models don't bring in much profit and their ASP suffers.

 

[senttoschool]

Then you shouldn't have made the comparison. Also why do you think Apple cares about the market share when they are raking in the profits? They already have the base Air and Mac Mini and lower priced models don't bring in much profit and their ASP suffers.

It's a proxy. You don't take the percentage as exact. All this shows is that Mac did extremely well when compared to the overall PC industry. IDC's report already shows that Macs increased in shipments last quarter. Apple's quarterly report confirmed how well it did.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Mac did extremely well when compared to the overall PC industry. IDC's report already shows that Macs increased in shipments last quarter. Apple's quarterly report confirmed how well it did.

Apple did very well, but macOS not so much. Apple increased its profits more than macOS market share.

 

[Krevnik]

They tried that a while back with Windows RT which wasn't too successful. There were complaints abut the lack of software, but the market may not have been ready for it back then; touch-focused Windows was still a pretty new thing. Could be different now if the ARM Windows 11 is really pushed.

A big issue was that Windows RT wasn’t really ready for developers and users for a couple reasons:

1) No x86 translation means no existing apps work as-is. So users are less willing to be early adopters.

2) To port to Windows RT meant adopting the WinRT framework as ARM Win32 itself wasn’t something you could build directly against as a developer. That went over about as well as a lead balloon.

You can’t really go to developers and say “Here’s this new platform, we’d like to see adoption, but you’re going to have to port your apps to it even though it’s fundamentally identical to what you’ve been building for already.”

With no carrot, no stick, and only hurdles to adoption… it’s not a surprise to me that it failed. Apple tends to be more successful partly because they have a very consistent developer story, and a clear path of what a developer has to do to keep up with the platform. Even if Apple’s attitude can be described as “get onboard or get lost” when they implement big changes like Mac OS -> OS X, PPC -> Intel or Intel -> ARM.

 

[Argon_]

A big issue was that Windows RT wasn’t really ready for developers and users for a couple reasons:

1) No x86 translation means no existing apps work as-is. So users are less willing to be early adopters.

2) To port to Windows RT meant adopting the WinRT framework as ARM Win32 itself wasn’t something you could build directly against as a developer. That went over about as well as a lead balloon.

You can’t really go to developers and say “Here’s this new platform, we’d like to see adoption, but you’re going to have to port your apps to it even though it’s fundamentally identical to what you’ve been building for already.”

With no carrot, no stick, and only hurdles to adoption… it’s not a surprise to me that it failed. Apple tends to be more successful partly because they have a very consistent developer story, and a clear path of what a developer has to do to keep up with the platform. Even if Apple’s attitude can be described at “get onboard or get lost” when they implement big changes like Mac OS -> OS X, PPC -> Intel or Intel -> ARM.

The endless fight for backwards compatibility at Microsoft is either an upper hand or a ball and chain, depending on who you ask.

 

[LeeW]

PC shipments falling is hardly a surprise following very strong sales during the pandemic. A 5% decline does not mean they are not still selling well.

These Mac vs PC comparisons as always are flawed because, well, Apple & Oranges.

 

[AltecX]

They tried that a while back with Windows RT which wasn't too successful. There were complaints abut the lack of software, but the market may not have been ready for it back then; touch-focused Windows was still a pretty new thing. Could be different now if the ARM Windows 11 is really pushed.

80-90% of the reason RT failed was due to 0 performant chips on the market to power it.

RT had such bad dev support and such a bad chip that it's not even comparable to today's environment. It was a circle of NO chips really powerful enough (the new chip will resolve most of that), and the market being SO small Devs saw 0 reason to put money/dev time into it, which meant 0 apps, and Users saw 0 apps so no reason to buy.

With a solid chip behind it, and the fact Windows on Arm is perfectly fine now. I suspect the issue will just be on Developers, and Users. Many larger apps are on ARM now even for Windows, or in testing, so There is MUCH less reason for Users to pass on it vs an Intel version.

 

[Krevnik]

The endless fight for backwards compatibility at Microsoft is either an upper hand or a ball and chain, depending on who you ask.

I tend to think you need a middle road when it comes to this. You need the freedom to evolve, but you can’t just tell developers to build on a new platform wholesale if it isn’t actually a new platform either. Microsoft loves the approach of “would we break existing devs? Okay then build something new from scratch”. My favorite example of this can even be seen entirely in .NET from the early days. There’s 3 ways to work with XML in .NET (introduced in .NET 1, 2, and 3). They don’t interact with each other, work completely differently from each other, and you wind up being coupled to one approach because there’s no compatibility between them.

So yeah, I think the answer is that it is both an asset and liability for Microsoft.

That said, Apple’s always considered the barriers developers would face during a transition. Carbon with the OS X transition to bring older Mac apps to the new platform. Rosetta during architecture changes to make it easier for early adopters to move their workflows entirely to new systems. The 64-bit transition took forever (over a decade) partly because it deprecated Carbon and Apple had to wait for devs to finish purging that old code. Even now, Apple’s trying to lower the barriers for developers to bring iOS apps to other parts of the Apple ecosystem, especially the Mac.

 

[Tagbert]

PC shipments falling is hardly a surprise following very strong sales during the pandemic. A 5% decline does not mean they are not still selling well.

These Mac vs PC comparisons as always are flawed because, well, Apple & Oranges.

Of course, Apple had strong sales through the pandemic. What is encouraging is that Apples sales continue to increase.

 

[sunny5]

How much has macOS market share increased?

Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of desktop operating systems worldwide based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

Forget it, macOS will never match with Windows.