As sales of PCs decline for 11 straight quarters, with Gartner stats showing a further 4.2% decline in Q2 2017, and IDC a 3.3% decline in the same period, Mac marketshare is up.
Windows PCs keep losing their lustre with the general public, according to marketshare stats from Gartner and IDC, two of the world’s most respected global research firms.
Gartner’s preliminary shipment estimates for Q2 2017 point to PC marketshare having declined for 11 straight quarters in a row, suggesting Microsoft’s strategy with Windows 10 isn’t quite capturing the public’s imagination in the way the public's imagination has undeniably been captured by smartphones.
Indeed, with the 2007-era netbook saviour ending up a major flop 10 years later, despite strong initial buzz, the 2007-era smartphone that is the iPhone has captured the public imagination to a degree that is still sending shockwaves through the market today.
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With over a billion devices running iOS having been sold over the past decade, and 200 million iPhones in the last year alone, with all being or having been premium and hugely profitable devices when sold, the result is actually more impressive than the 2 billion Android devices out there, many of which have been low and mid-range devices.
It is the smartphone that has eaten away at PC sales, with many people doing so many of the things they once used a cheap PC for, with tablets - and primarily iPads - being the other major PC alternative.
Apple’s iPad sales not only massively dwarf Surface sales, Apple still sells many more iPads than MacBooks each year.
But even with Apple’s iOS devices - pocket computers, phones and tablets - being a major reason as to why PC marketshare keeps declining, now over 11 straight quarters, Apple’s global marketshare has gone up.
IDC’s Q2 2017 stats show Apple in fourth spot, with its marketshare growing 1.7% in Q2 2017 over the same period in 2016.
Then we can look at Gartner’s Q2 2017 global preliminary figures, which show Apple in fifth spot, with its global Mac marketshare pegged for Q2 2016 at 6.7% in 2016, and for Q2 2017 at 6.9%.
To be fair, Gartner’s preliminary US PC Vendor shipment estimates show Apple with US marketshare in Q2 2016 at 12.3%, and falling to 11.8% in Q2 2017, but with the US a country of 326 million people, compared to the other 7.2 billion other people on Planet Earth, looking at global figures makes complete sense as the world population is now estimated to be 7.5 billion people (according to Wikipedia for April 2017 and according to the World Population Clock).
Of course, neither Gartner nor IDC have the guts to include iPad sales in Apple’s figures, which would make Apple’s true figures even higher, because apparently an iPad isn’t a “personal computer,” and neither is a smartphone, it seems.
Google’s Chromebooks aren’t counted as PCs, either.
Oh well. The public is smarter than that, and Apple’s incredible profits and total sales figures are testimony to the fact that people voluntarily buy Apple’s products in huge numbers.
Those purchases were once for PCs. Windows Mobiles. Nokias. Sony Ericssons. Motorola RAZRs. Netbooks. Desktops. Notebooks.
Yes, plenty of PCs still sell as can be seen by the total marketshare of HP, Lenovo, Dell, Asus, Acer, Microsoft and others, which together vastly outsell Apple.
But PC marketshare is down, and Apple’s global marketshare is up. Apple’s profits and its ability to continue funding the future are also extremely healthy, and which are the envy not only of every PC maker on the planet, but just about every other company on the planet, too.
Make of that what you will, but as usual, facts speak volumes.