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IDC: Apple continues to gain in PC market share despite year-over-year shipment drop

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IDC has today published its latest report concerning the PC market, and once again, it shows Apple outpacing the rest of the industry, albeit at a slightly slower pace this time around. According to the data, Apple saw its total market share increase during the first quarter of 2016, though it actually saw total sales fall year-over-year.

The report says that total PC shipments worldwide hit 60.6 million during the first quarter of 2016, which is a decline of 11.5 percent year-over-year. This is a slightly worse drop than analyst predictions of 11.3 percent. Specifically in the United States, shipments fell 5.8 percent to 13.6 million units.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 60.6 million units in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16), a year-on-year decline of 11.5%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. Shipments were in line with conservative expectations for a decline of 11.3%, and anticipated a relatively weak environment during the first half of 2016 as Windows 10 enterprise upgrades largely remained in pilot phase while consumer demand remains weak. The volatility in stocks, commodities and currencies also helped depress shipments

In terms of Apple specifically, the company saw shipments rise 5.6 percent year-over-year to 1.8 million in the United States, although its global shipments fell 2.6 percent year-over-year. Despite global shipments falling, however, Apple gained in terms of market share, increasing its share to 7.4 percent worldwide to 13 percent in the United States.

With it now holding 7.4 percent of the worldwide PC market, Apple is now the holds the fourth spot in the industry as it continues to outpace the rest of the market, despite its annual decline in worldwide shipments.

Apple is expected to introduce a refreshed Mac lineup at some point in the near future, although specific details are unclear. In the most recent OS X Server build, there were references to an “early 2016 12-inch MacBook,” though Apple has made no official announcements regarding its Mac lineup yet. Some rumors have suggested Apple will work to make the rest of the MacBook lineup much thinner, while the 12-inch MacBook will get an under-the-hood refresh.

Last month, IDC predicted that Apple Watch will lead the smartwatch market through 2020, while noting that Android Wear was starting to close the gap. In 2020, IDC expects Apple Watch will sell 31 million units for 37.6% of the market while it estimates Android Wear to sell 28 million units and grab 35% market share.

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Comments

  1. viciosodiego - 8 years ago

    Now apple, if you could introduce a 17 MBP with a xeon chip and replaceable ram and storage.

    • viciosodiego - 8 years ago

      I really wanted to get a 17 inch MBP, but they were very outdated.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      i would go for 14″ and 16″ Pros
      have 13″ and15″ Airs for a good everyday laptop
      and move the MacBook to A series chips for a great education laptop and a budget priced ultraportable.

      I don’t see any Apple laptop ever coming with user replaceable ram or storage.I just wish they cut down the premium they charge for storage and ram. They charge $200 more for 256 GB flash storage from the 128 GB base model and $200 from 8 GB of ram to 16 GB. AT least all the MacBook Pro’s now come with flash storage. 256 flash storage and 16 GB of ram should standard in the base models.

      The ram in the 27″ iMac is Apples biggest ram ripoff right now. They charge $200 for 2 8 GB sticks, but charge $600 for 4 8 GB sticks. Same memory they charge $100 a stick suddenly becomes $150. At least it is user replaceable, but is still a ripoff.

  2. Jake Becker - 8 years ago

    The next iMac is going to have to turn some heads and get that crowd that still views the classic silver aluminum as the same machine year in and year out.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      I wish the late 2015 model at least got USB-C ports, since Apple kept the ports out of reach on the back.If they don’t won’t to reduce the chin and side bezels I wish they would at least make it easy to plug in cables.

  3. pdixon1986 - 8 years ago

    windows 8 didn’t help microsoft, nor did 8.1, and windows 10 still doesnt please everyone – plus some are not keen on the force upgrade for certain systems.
    Apple has also gradually become better known as a more hassle free and longer lasting option — my sister complain about how she would by a reasonably priced windows machine and within a few months it felt sluggish and it needed a lot of maintenance… i convinced her to change to mac and now shes happy… my mum is still using my original ipad — she said it still works and she can still check facebook, internet, and play scrabble — she said it quicker than waiting for her windows laptop to load up… my dad still uses windows – he constantly gets frustrated and calls me up… he is now considering getting a mac mini.

    Apple is pricey… and although you can get cheaper windows machines with the same specs, the main issue is the windows OS — so much vulnerability, with constant updates, and always slowing down, and quickly becoming out of date — some windows machines look awesome, fantastic design, and often worth their money IF they didnt have a bad OS…

    Apple are also cheaper than what they used to be… my only wish is that Apple would put some more time and effort into their office apps — Their current office apps are appalling and hardly usable for most of what i need to do…google docs is online and yet still has more functionality…but that leaves me with microsoft office — which is fine, but it’s microsoft, and it keeps having issue.

    • David Bell - 7 years ago

      Windows 8.1 was horrible, 10 is not great but livable. XP is no longer supported but works just fine, 7 is the only realistic option for most people. MAC’s are great for people who are not tech savy and have no desire to upgrade the internal parts very often. People who want limited uses out of their machine are who MAC’s were developed for. The biggest hurdle to MAC is very tech savvy people will just opt for a Linux Distro instead as it’s built on a similar platform

      As far as the slow comments regarding PC’s that is almost always end user error, not the PC itself. All the rigs i build windows based perform nearly like new from birth to death (retirement). The grief i experience comes at the occasional shoddy parts such as bad ram sticks from Taiwan or the power supply that i went cheap on because the life span of 2 of them was cheaper than buying top of the line. It almost never ends up being an issue with the OS. I have had to reload peoples OS’s due to infestations from excessive porn watching 99.9% of the time, it’s only sub 1% of the time it’s from the failing OS.

      All that being said, the MAC on average will give the user almost no issues ever, it just comes at a premium price and almost all of the mac users i know who don’t live in the IT world only use it for internet browsing and picture storage. The IT folks i know who are on team apple make great use of the machines, but they know they are paying a premium and are OK with it due to brand loyalty. They don’t want to set up automated maintenance on their PC and they don’t want to have to be bothered if windows/microsoft messes something up. They have no problems running VM ware or Parallels or a boot camp install if they want windows only programs / the standard user not so much.

      You will find both sides of the fence defending every flaw and triumphing every success of their respected product, but the market share alone of MAC’s should be shocking to the average person. Why do they hold such a small share? It is partially price and partially marketing, but at the end of the day there are a lot of expensive things that hold well in the market place, MAC’s need to evaluate how they want to go about bridging that gap (if they even want too). You also need to take into account that one of it’s biggest selling point, the lack of virus’s and adware are almost solely due to the market share and not that much to do with the difficulty in creating said virus’s and malware/adware etc. The larger it gets the bigger target it becomes.

      In my humble biased opinion, the only chance MAC has for a future is if Microsoft and Windows keep fucking things up, otherwise there would be no competition at all. If windows made bios settings easier to work with, clocking settings easier to work with, including better compatibility and helped automate some of the weekly, monthly and yearly maintenance that a PC requires to stay tip top, they would likely deal the killing blow to the average mac user.

  4. Amitai Palmon (@amitaip) - 8 years ago

    The iMacs, including the new 21.5 inch models, are equipped with slow storage by default – a 5400 rpm disk.
    In addition, 512GB SSD is only an option for the 4K display model (why?) and SSD part in the Fusion disk is down from 128GB to 24GB.
    This is evil, and a deal breaker for me.
    Engadget put it nicely: “4K display is optional, fast storage isn’t”. This time you’ve gone too far.
    Apple, please refresh your iMac models

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      I had originally planned on purchasing the $1799 base model with the 1 TB Fusion as the extra $100 option, but declined do to the 24GB flash drive.The 2 GB fusion would put the base model at $2099, so i look at the mid tier model that starts at $1999 it has the same 1 TB fusion drive with the crappy 25GB flash. The 2 GB fusion makes it $2199, so I look at the$2299 top tier model. It has 2 GB fusion drive standard and a better graphic card and processor to I end up spending an extra $400 more then intended, because Apple crippled the base Fusion Drive.

      I think Apple should go SSD only on the 4k and 5k iMac’s like they have done with MacBook Pros.

      • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

        All the ThunderBolt external SSD drives I have seen are expensive and keeps them from being an alternative to a 2GB Fusion drive model or one the built to order SSD iMac models.

        I did get two sets of 16 GB ram kits for $80 a piece on Amazon instead of paying Apple outrageous ram prices.

  5. RP - 8 years ago

    And Apple doesn’t seem to advertise the Macs other than product placements on television and film. I see MS advertising the heck out of the surface and plenty of Windows machines. But actual commercials or print ads for the Mac are seemingly non-existent.

    • Jake Becker - 8 years ago

      Hard to understand. Even the refreshed iPods got some attention. I would still be all Apple if there weren’t a Mac, but Macs are why I am all Apple in the first place.

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

Tips, questions, typos to chance@9to5mac.com