The Mac had a brilliant 2025, with shipments increasing 16.4% year over year. That’s a growth rate none of the computer’s top rivals could match.
It marks the third straight year of annual increases. And the rate could have been higher if Apple didn’t push back the launch of some much-anticipated products.
Mac shipments grew by double digits in 2025
Apple enjoys clear advantages when competing in the global PC marketplace. It controls the entire experience, from custom Apple silicon to macOS and tightly integrated hardware. That allows Macs to deliver strong performance per watt, long laptop battery life and a polished user interface that differentiates Macs from commodity Windows PCs.
At the same time, Apple faces hurdles in a market dominated by lower-priced Windows machines. But the Mac maker is holding on and even growing.
Mac shipments globally grew 16.4% in 2025 when compared to the previous year, according to new data from analysts with Omdia. That rate of growth outpaces all rivals.
Market research firm IDC isn’t quite as upbeat about Apple, but its new report on global PC market still indicates that Mac shipments grew 11.1% year over year.
Chart: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
IDC data shows shipments of Macs have grown every year since 2023 — the entire post-pandemic era. There was a massive increase in demand for Macs during the pandemic, and the entire PC market is still recovering.
Putting the COVID-19 years aside, Mac shipments experienced a slow decline from 2017 through 2019, with Apple’s share of the global PC market dropping as low as 6.6%. Fortunately, the recent years of growth in Apple computer shipments make that ancient history, especially as the Mac’s 2025 market share hit 9%, according to IDC.
Intel chips inside Macs undoubtedly contributed to the slowdown in demand years ago, and the switch to Apple silicon spurs the current growth.
To be clear, Apple remains in fourth place in the world PC market, behind Lenovo, HP and Dell. But it’s gaining on its rivals.
Apple 2025 shipments could have been stronger
In the last quarter of 2025, Apple introduced a new MacBook Pro, the first with the M5 processor. However, only the base version of the chip was available, and the laptop came only in a 14-inch variant. Shoppers must wait until later in 2026 for versions sporting M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. If those had hit the market in the final quarter of 2025, as many observers expected, Apple’s annual growth would have been even higher.
As it is, 2026 is shaping up to be a strong year for the Mac. Other launches might include a redesigned M6 MacBook Pro with a touchscreen late in the year, as well as MacBook Air, Mac mini, Mac Studio and iMac models upgraded to the M5 chip.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
