Mac shipments grow even as PC market declines

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M-series Macs
People are buying plenty of Macs, despite a slowdown in PC shipments.
Photo: Apple

Mac shipments grew 4.3% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2022. But its biggest rivals dropped — HP shipments plunged almost 18%, for example.

The pandemic boom in computer sales is slowing, but it’s affecting Apple less.

Mac shipments just keep growing in Q1 2022

Unit shipments are one of the best indications of the overall health of a platform. And it’s clear the Mac is doing well, with shipments growing strongly for years.

In the first quarter of 2022, Apple shipped 7.2 million macOS desktops and laptops, according to preliminary figures from IDC. That’s up from 6.9 million shipped during the same period of 2021.

This gave Apple 8.9% of the world market for traditional computers, up from its 8.1% share a year ago.

PC makers not so much

Even as Apple grew, makers of Windows PCs saw an overall decline of 6% in their shipments. This was mostly caused by Lenovo’s 9.2% drop and HP’s 17.8% drop. Dell actually grew 6.1%, according to IDC.

The total number of Mac and Windows PCs shipped in Q1 2022 was 80.5 million. While that total is down slightly year-over-year, it is up enormously over Q1 2019 shipments, which only hit 58.5 million. The difference is the pandemic, which started in 2020 and forced people to work from home and students to take classes from home, too. This drove up sales of computers of all types. But the surge is slowing.

“We have witnessed some slowdown in both the education and consumer markets, but all indicators show demand for commercial PCs remains very strong,” said Ryan Reith with IDC. “We also believe that the consumer market will pick up again in the near future.”

It’s also worth noting that Apple’s share of the traditional computer market in Q1 2019 was 6.9%. The Mac is coming out of two troubled years stronger than it went in.

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