Mac sales fall by 40%

[Ethosik]

Are price increases really the major factor here? NVIDIA is getting away with $1,500+ for a GPU alone. And gamers are buying it up.

 

[pshufd]

Are you sure you can hear the high pitch sound? Not all can. It’s very quiet. I would actually take a much louder fan system over this.

I can't hear any high-pitched sound at all. I can hear the fan at 1.5 - 2 feet away. I can hear the fan 1.5 feet away from the back of the Studio. My microphone picks it up 2 feet from the front of the studio.

 

[pshufd]

Are price increases really the major factor here? NVIDIA is getting away with $1,500+ for a GPU alone. And gamers are buying it up.

I think that's a fairly niche market. My kids know a lot of gamers and the vast majority don't spend anywhere near that for a GPU.

 

[Ethosik]

I can't hear any high-pitched sound at all. I can hear the fan at 1.5 - 2 feet away. I can hear the fan 1.5 feet away from the back of the Studio. My microphone picks it up 2 feet from the front of the studio.

Let me be clear, does your ears have the ability to pick up any high pitch sound?

The studio’s fans are quiet. I can’t hear the “fan”. But I hear an annoying whine non stop.

 

[Analog Kid]

3. Super cycle with M1 Macs

I think this is the dominant factor.

We knew AS was coming, people had time to hold back their purchases for the new fancy, and when the flood gates opened they did. Now they won't need to again for a few years. It'll take a while for the ringing to stop.

Then add some date weirdness and sampling issues using quarter to quarter rather than trailing 12mo estimates.

 

[pshufd]

Let me be clear, does your ears have the ability to pick up any high pitch sound?

The studio’s fans are quiet. I can’t hear the “fan”. But I hear an annoying whine non stop.

I can hear a high-pitched whine on this video of a Studio with the problem:

One of the videos I watched stated that they can hear the whine from 3.3 meters away.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

That’s not true like at all. A lot of people including me, prefer the tidiness of an iMac. Only one cable and you’re ready.

There's no denying the visual appeal yes. However, function over fashion always reigns supreme, especially since we're two years in and the iMac is still on M1 with rumors they're skipping an M2 refresh.

All in ones in general are few and far between nowadays. It's just how the market is now as I said. It's either a laptop with an external monitor, or a full desktop.

Not to mention the iMac not having USB-A ports is another issue, since the Mac Mini and Studio have USB-A ports.

Plus, the price is pretty good too when compared to a studio display + Mac mini/studio combo.

Your first problem is actually buying the StudiNo display. Don't. There are better cheaper monitors, that thing is a meme that I'm baffled was signed off on with how many issues it has.

You can get a M2 Mac Mini for $500, a nice ASUS ProArt for under $200, and then a keyboard and mouse of your choice for under $200, and the combo will be cheaper than the iMac, and perform better than the iMac. Even if you added more RAM or storage to that Mac Mini it would still be cheaper than the iMac.

The current iMac is fugly though. Apple needs to introduce better/more attractive models.

Okay I'm gonna fight you on this. I'm tired of people calling the M1 iMac "fugly." The thing brightens my mood everytime I see it. We finally got colorful non-gaming PC computers again for the first time in nearly 20 years.

 

[pshufd]

There's no denying the visual appeal yes. However, function over fashion always reigns supreme, especially since we're two years in and the iMac is still on M1 with rumors they're skipping an M2 refresh.

All in ones in general are few and far between nowadays. It's just how the market is now as I said. It's either a laptop with an external monitor, or a full desktop.

Not to mention the iMac not having USB-A ports is another issue, since the Mac Mini and Studio have USB-A ports.



Your first problem is actually buying the StudiNo display. Don't. There are better cheaper monitors, that thing is a meme that I'm baffled was signed off on with how many issues it has.

You can get a M2 Mac Mini for $500, a nice ASUS ProArt for under $200, and then a keyboard and mouse of your choice for under $200, and the combo will be cheaper than the iMac, and perform better than the iMac. Even if you added more RAM or storage to that Mac Mini it would still be cheaper than the iMac.

Okay I'm gonna fight you on this. I'm tired of people calling the M1 iMac "fugly." The thing brightens my mood everytime I see it. We finally got colorful non-gaming PC computers again for the first time in nearly 20 years.

My iMac wishlist is the 27 inch iMac with the same ports as the Mac Studio and an M1 Max or M1 Ultra chip, in aluminum and thicker than the M1 iMac. I'd be fine with the 2020 chassis.

 

[joehohoho]

Also the price increases wouldn’t have helped on an already expensive product.

I love Macs but am finding them increasingly difficult to justify especially when adding ram etc.

Also the fact their chip costs must have decreased handsomely means they’ll have better margins which makes the above harder for me to swallow too.

Greed will come back to bite you on the ass and it may well be happening to apple considering these stats.

 

[Celtic Warrior]

I think that's a fairly niche market. My kids know a lot of gamers and the vast majority don't spend anywhere near that for a GPU.

I would say so. There are other graphics cards that are cheaper for medium range or even high but not everybody buys top of its line RTX 4090 for example. It costs about around $CAD 2,100 here and I don't think many people would be willing to pay that much.

 

[dgdosen]

So what we have is IDC estimating Apple sales to drop 2% percent in a quarter where Apple reports 40% loss of revenue, and then IDC estimates Apple sales to drop 40% in the next quarter. This just doesn't add up to me.

Recapping:

• Apple Fiscal Year End (FYE or FY) is end of September of a given year. FY23 is the fiscal year that ends at the end of September 2023.
• IDC is reporting units on a CY quarterly basis
• Apple is reporting revenue on a FY quarterly basis (and their policy seems to be "report as little financial information as legally possible"). We can re-label time periods to make comparisons easier.
• Apple reported mac revenue dropped from 10.9B to 7.7B for 2021CY4Q vs 2022CY4Q
• IDC reported mac units sold dropped 7.7M to 7.5M for 2021CY4Q vs 2022CY4Q
• That implies average selling price also dropped from $1,415 to $1,026 for those same periods.
  • Maybe Apple went from selling higher priced Pros and Studios at the end of 2021, compared to more Minis at the end of 2022?
• Apple reported mac revenue changed from 10.4B to <TBD> for 2022CY1Q vs 2023CY1Q (need to wait for Apple's earnings call on 5/4)
• IDC reported mac units sold dropped 6.9M to 4.1M for 2022CY1Q vs 2023CY1Q
• That implies that the average selling price was $1,500 for 2022CY1Q
  • Still selling M1Pro/Max laptops and studios?
• Since Apple started selling M2Pro/Max laptops in 2023CY1Q, I'd bet that product mix will lean towards the pricey side - say ~1,400 - for a guestimated mac revenue of $5.8B... We'll find out in a few weeks. Probably one reason why Apple signaled the market by saying they're cutting M2 chip orders.

SixColors did a nice write up of Apple numbers with easy to digest charts:

Apple results and charts: $117.2B quarter is still a step back

Apple on Thursday announced its fiscal first-quarter results, and it was a step backward. The company’s year-over-year revenue fell $6.7 billion, though with total revenue of $117.2 billion i…

sixcolors.com

Interestingly, profit % was at a near-record high for 2021CY4Q while revenue was down. Apple is choosing higher profits vs increasing Mac market share. This revenue variation has to be giving Tim some major heartburn.

 

[PhilsAir]

PC Pain Persists in Q1 2023 Due to Excess Inventory and Poor Demand, According to IDC Tracker

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

www.idc.com

View attachment 2186762

What is most surprising here is that Apple's share growth is worse than other PC makers. It seemed like Apple was going to continue to gain market share in PCs with Apple Silicon effortlessly. But this didn't happen in Q1.

I'm going to speculate why:

• People are going back to buying cheaper laptops due to the economy, inflation, and exchange rates. Apple suffers in this environment because they're generally less flexible when it comes to dropping prices.
• M2 was late by ~8 months (assuming they want to release a new gen every year).
• M2 Pro/Max, consequentially, was also late by 4 months.
• M2's performance increases did not knock it out of the park. No Ray Tracing support. No drastic increase in ST. Still using a node in 5nm family.
• Ideally, we should be on M3 right now.
• M1, Pro, Max were so good that people will wait for M3 or M4 to upgrade again. I'm in this camp.
• Still no MacBook SE to capture the value Walmart/Costco Windows laptop buyers
• Still no 15" Macbook Air, which will very likely become the #1 selling Mac when it's released
• RAM and SSD are expensive upgrades

The most frustrating thing about following Apple Silicon over the last 2 years is just how passive Apple's strategy is. Hopefully, Apple is learning a lesson here and will be more aggressive going forward. No more delays. No more holding back. Less stingy on RAM and SSD.

I think the main reason why Apple Sales are down..... They make a great product and people don't have a need to purchase new ones all of the time... I have 2 that I use. My everyday Mac that I use is a Mac mini (Late 2012) running Catalina I upgraded the ram to 16mb... although I did have to replace the hard drive, I now I have a 1 TB SATA Disk
... it runs great and does everything I need it to do for me on a daily basis ... I also have a 2019 MacBook Air running Ventura 13.3.1 that I use for all of my other transactions... Mac's are Great and they work.... I switched over to Mac's years ago and have never looked back.... When the time comes that I need another computer Apple has got my business..... "All Of You People Have A Wonderful Apple Day"

 

[Ethosik]

I think that's a fairly niche market. My kids know a lot of gamers and the vast majority don't spend anywhere near that for a GPU.

4090 isn’t just used for games. People buy up $5,000 Quadro cards for productivity so I don’t really think price is an issue.

 

[pshufd]

4090 isn’t just used for games. People buy up $5,000 Quadro cards for productivity so I don’t really think price is an issue.

And my statement still stands.

 

[theorist9]

Note that this is unit volume, not sales. The large unit volume in Q3 2022 is probably because that's when Apple's most popular Mac, the Air, had a new model release (the M2, in July 2022)—and because the Air's last refresh was 20 months prior. The declining volume after that makes sense if sales shifted in Q1 2023 to the lower-volume M2 MBP's, which were released then.

 

[Wizec]

People use their smartphones and tablets for their computing needs. Laptops and desktops are obsolete for 90% of people. The Mac is a legacy platform and will stay that way until Apple finally lets people develop apps on the iPad with a keyboard. When that day comes, the Mac will be put to rest.

I literally just finished my first iOS app on my iPad Pro 4th gen.

 

[ACD30"]

The thing this chart shows is the entire industry had a drop in laptop sales. When the Mac was #1 for 8 quarters straight it's gonna get hit the hardest



Exactly this. There's off times where iPhone sales aren't high since there's not a lot of reasons to get the latest models everytime. The same will happen to the Mac now too since it's actually getting constant refreshes now.

Once M3 shows up that number will go up again since everyone who's on M1 will be more inclined to upgrade once they see a massive leap in performance.



I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future the iMac gets discontinued. Even when the M1 iMac dropped sales for it haven't been very high compared to the Mac Mini. It's hard to justify getting an all in one anymore when most people would rather just use their own displays nowadays.

The iMac is such an outdated concept at this point. I want a need for one, but I couldn't ever justify it. Those who can afford it are not buying desktops, and those who cannot aren't buying it either.

 

[ACD30"]

People use their smartphones and tablets for their computing needs. Laptops and desktops are obsolete for 90% of people. The Mac is a legacy platform and will stay that way until Apple finally lets people develop apps on the iPad with a keyboard. When that day comes, the Mac will be put to rest.

I totally agree. Most users' smartphones are probably the first computing devices they ever owned. Why would they even consider a desktop now if they never had before? Anyone who argues for the relevance of desktop and laptop computers is either biased or is basically asserting that the market is only made up of creative professionals whose workflows demand as much hardware as possible. Apple Silicon is breathing new life into the concept of the desktop computer, but that may be the last breath.

This is coming from someone who loves desktop computers and will probably continue needlessly using one for the heck of it. In reality, I could probably get by with a phone for most things.

 

[dgdosen]

People use their smartphones and tablets for their computing needs. Laptops and desktops are obsolete for 90% of people. The Mac is a legacy platform and will stay that way until Apple finally lets people develop apps on the iPad with a keyboard. When that day comes, the Mac will be put to rest.

I'm not so sure... These LLM models are complex to work with and need a bit of horsepower. They seem best-suited for working on a Mac...

 

[orionquest]

Apple is Doomed

 

[sorgo †]

…And the World waits, with baited breath, for that fateful and famed M3.

 

[krell100]

Just give me an M3 Ultra Mac Studio, Apple, and I'll gladly give you AU$8,000 to help your quarterly revenue figures.

 

[Miltz]

PC Pain Persists in Q1 2023 Due to Excess Inventory and Poor Demand, According to IDC Tracker

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

www.idc.com

View attachment 2186762

What is most surprising here is that Apple's share growth is worse than other PC makers. It seemed like Apple was going to continue to gain market share in PCs with Apple Silicon effortlessly. But this didn't happen in Q1.

I'm going to speculate why:

• People are going back to buying cheaper laptops due to the economy, inflation, and exchange rates. Apple suffers in this environment because they're generally less flexible when it comes to dropping prices.
• M2 was late by ~8 months (assuming they want to release a new gen every year).
• M2 Pro/Max, consequentially, was also late by 4 months.
• M2's performance increases did not knock it out of the park. No Ray Tracing support. No drastic increase in ST. Still using a node in 5nm family.
• Ideally, we should be on M3 right now.
• M1, Pro, Max were so good that people will wait for M3 or M4 to upgrade again. I'm in this camp.
• Still no MacBook SE to capture the value Walmart/Costco Windows laptop buyers
• Still no 15" Macbook Air, which will very likely become the #1 selling Mac when it's released
• RAM and SSD are expensive upgrades and 8/256 base is finally not enough

The most frustrating thing about following Apple Silicon over the last 2 years is just how passive Apple's strategy is. Hopefully, Apple is learning a lesson here and will be more aggressive going forward. No more delays. No more holding back. Less stingy on RAM and SSD.

I think the most shocking thing here is anyone who complains about how slow the M2 pro and M2 max are. “They didn’t knock it out of the park”. There is no laptop on this planet when not plugged in that can outperform the M2 PRO/MAX, or touch their battery life. Same goes for real world usage. Apple is way ahead, IMO. Everyone else is 1-2 years behind. Even intel’s latest offerings, can barely touch Apple, especially unplugged. Sorry I come from a mindset that a laptop is a mobile device, not a gimmick that lasts 45 minutes then dies just so it can win cinabench and geekbench.

 

[WilliamG]

Good for the customer.
Maybe Apple will pull back on their crazy pricing for memory upgrades, and maybe fanboys will quit defending them because "muh inflation".
Anyway this had to happen sooner or later.

100%. I’d have a new Mac mini if it weren’t a total joke to go from a base 256GB/8GB to a 512GB/16GB model.

 

[leman]

Recapping:

• Apple Fiscal Year End (FYE or FY) is end of September of a given year. FY23 is the fiscal year that ends at the end of September 2023.
• IDC is reporting units on a CY quarterly basis
• Apple is reporting revenue on a FY quarterly basis (and their policy seems to be "report as little financial information as legally possible"). We can re-label time periods to make comparisons easier.
• Apple reported mac revenue dropped from 10.9B to 7.7B for 2021CY4Q vs 2022CY4Q
• IDC reported mac units sold dropped 7.7M to 7.5M for 2021CY4Q vs 2022CY4Q
• That implies average selling price also dropped from $1,415 to $1,026 for those same periods.
  • Maybe Apple went from selling higher priced Pros and Studios at the end of 2021, compared to more Minis at the end of 2022?
• Apple reported mac revenue changed from 10.4B to <TBD> for 2022CY1Q vs 2023CY1Q (need to wait for Apple's earnings call on 5/4)
• IDC reported mac units sold dropped 6.9M to 4.1M for 2022CY1Q vs 2023CY1Q
• That implies that the average selling price was $1,500 for 2022CY1Q
  • Still selling M1Pro/Max laptops and studios?
• Since Apple started selling M2Pro/Max laptops in 2023CY1Q, I'd bet that product mix will lean towards the pricey side - say ~1,400 - for a guestimated mac revenue of $5.8B... We'll find out in a few weeks. Probably one reason why Apple signaled the market by saying they're cutting M2 chip orders.

SixColors did a nice write up of Apple numbers with easy to digest charts:

Apple results and charts: $117.2B quarter is still a step back

Apple on Thursday announced its fiscal first-quarter results, and it was a step backward. The company’s year-over-year revenue fell $6.7 billion, though with total revenue of $117.2 billion i…

sixcolors.com

Interestingly, profit % was at a near-record high for 2021CY4Q while revenue was down. Apple is choosing higher profits vs increasing Mac market share. This revenue variation has to be giving Tim some major heartburn.

Thanks for the detailed breakdown! You illustrate clearly why the IDC story makes me uneasy. They essentially claim that during a quarter where Apple introduced no new product and experienced a large decline in revenue, they were still selling record-breaking amounts of Macs (albeit overwhelmingly the cheapest ones). Already this is hard to swallow for me when one considers the price of Macs — there have to be an ungodly amounts of $999 M1 MBAs and M1 Minis to drop the average to $1000.

And then during a quarter when they released new MacBook Pros and M2/M2 Pro Mac Minis (the product a lot of people were waiting for!) — according to IDC at least — they are supposed to made 40% fewer sales compared to a quarter with no new product release at all? This just doesn't add up for me...