Apple’s struggle to get computers assembled in China during COVID lockdowns this spring had the expected result: Mac shipments dropped 22.5% in the spring quarter of 2022, according to a market-research firm.
At least company execs can take solace from the fact that this is not a demand problem. Consumers want to buy Macs but Apple can’t supply them.
Q2 2022 Mac shipment problems are temporary
COVID-19 lockdowns in China this spring pushed wait times for Macs out weeks. If Apple can’t get Macs assembled, it can’t ship them. Hence the precipitous fall in Q2 shipments.
Apple shipped 4.8 million macOS desktops and laptops in the April-through-June period, according to IDC. That’s down from 6.2 million in the same quarter of 2021.
Almost anyone buying Cupertino’s latest and greatest – the 2021 MacBook Pro and Mac Studio – faced a lengthy wait for delivery. But that was in Q2. Apple is starting to catch up with demand for these models. And the new M2 MacBook Air doesn’t have such long delivery delays.
“Barring any further supply issues, IDC expects Apple to ramp up its production in the second half of the year,” the analysis firm said in a statement.
PC shipments also took a bad hit
All of the top PC makers also saw shipment drops in Q2 2022. “The decline was worse than expected as supply and logistics further deteriorated due to the lockdowns in China and persistent macroeconomic headwinds,” noted IDC.
Lenovo’s shipments dropped 12.1%, and HP’s plummeted a whopping 27.6%, according to IDC. Dell shipments went down 5.3% and Acer’s declined 19.2%.
Worldwide shipments of traditional PCs, including Macs, dropped 15.3% year over year.
IDC analysts are pessimistic about the future. “Consumer demand for PCs has weakened in the near term and is at risk of perishing in the long term as consumers become more cautious about their spending and once again grow accustomed to computing across device types such as phones and tablets,” said IDC’s Jitesh Ubrani. “Commercial PC demand is also showing signs of a slowdown.”
Just laptops and desktops not tablets
These figures are for traditional PCs: desktops, notebooks and workstations. IDC leaves tablets out of this count even though it admits that many consumers use tablets in place of laptops or desktops.
When iPad and other types of tablets have been included in previous counts by a rival market-research firm, Apple jumped to the top of the global computer market.
