Shipments of Apple Macs increased a full 36% year-over-year during the second quarter of 2020, according to a market-research firm. The growth is pegged to individuals, companies and schools buying computers to make remote work and learning possible during the COVID-19 pandemic.
All the top traditional computer makers saw increase in shipments, though none even close to Apple’s growth.
“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio,” said Jitesh Ubrani research manager for IDC’s Mobile Device Trackers, in a statement.
Apple experienced stellar Q2 2020 Mac shipments
This market research firm pointed out that while Q1 2020 was record breaking for the lowest PC shipments seen in over a decade, the second quarter was record breaking for the opposite reason.
There were 5.6 million Mac shipments during the second quarter of 2020, according to IDC. Compare that to the 4.1 million shipped during the same quarter of 2019 to get the 36% annual increase.
And it means Apple accounted for 7.7% of all traditional PC shipments during the April-to-June period. That puts Cupertino in fourth place in the global market in number of units shipped.
HP climbed to the top of the world market by experiencing 17.7% growth last quarter, notes IDC. Lenovo shipments grew 7.4%, while Dell increased a mere 3.5%.
Chart: IDC
An important caveat
Just note that these IDC figures include desktops, notebooks and workstations but exclude tablets. If iPad shipments were added to Mac shipments, and the tablets made by other companies were also factored in, Apple would be much higher in the rankings.
There are no figures yet for Q2 2020, but 12.3 million iPads shipped during Q2 of 2019. Lenovo shipped 1.9 million tablets while HP moved an insignificant number that same quarter. Assume 2020 will be similar to last year, and Apple would be somewhere neck-and-neck with HP and Lenovo in total shipments.
