According to Canalys, the worldwide PC market grew 17.9% in Q4 2013, thanks to a seasonal surge in tablet shipments. Tablets grew 65.2% year-on-year to reach 76.3 million units, representing 48.3% of the total PC market. Excluding tablets, shipments declined 6.9% year-on-year with falls in all regions.
Apple remained the PC market leader in Q4, shipping 30.9 million units to take a 19.5% share of the market. It shipped 26.0 million iPads, which accounted for 84.3% of its total shipments in Q4. Apple’s share of the overall tablet market increased sequentially from 27.3% to 34.1%, with the launch of the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display providing a much needed boost. The original iPad mini also fell in price, down to US$299 in the US, making it cheaper than ever to buy an iPad.
Lenovo secured an 11.8% share in Q4, narrowly holding onto second place. Lenovo’s PC shipments increased 25.5% year-on-year, driven by growth outside of its core Chinese market, where its shipments declined. Lenovo’s 11.7% decline in notebook shipments in China was offset by impressive growth in other regions, notably EMEA, where shipments grew 30.4%. Shipments in Latin America also grew strongly, following the acquisition of CCE in the first quarter of 2012. Lenovo was early to embrace Android as a tablet OS, while the likes of HP and Dell waited for Windows 8 and prioritized margin over volume. Lenovo’s strategy has paid off, not only in its home market but worldwide. ‘Lenovo still has the potential to grow its global notebook shipments and has emerged as a challenger in the tablet space,’ said James Wang, Analyst. ‘Worldwide, Lenovo shipped three times as many tablets in Q4 as HP and Dell combined, or two and a half times when excluding China.’
Samsung took third place, shipping 18.2 million units. Tablets accounted for 79.7% of its Q4 PC shipments, some 14.5 million units, up 90.3% on Q4 2012. Samsung is a clear second in the tablet market. The top two vendors combined accounted for 53.2% of shipments. But Samsung’s shipment growth came at a price, as it had to resort to significant promotional activity to run down inventory. Most of Apple’s and Samsung’s shipments are to established markets, with around two thirds to EMEA and North America. Shipments to Latin America and Asia Pacific (excluding Greater China) were similar for both vendors. “Apple is focusing on China, where it has a 38.3% share of the tablet market, but it does not reach competitive price points in other high-growth markets and risks missing out on future progress,” said Tim Coulling, Senior Analyst. “Product innovation and competition in the Android camp will continue to accelerate. This gives good growth potential to smaller local players and those top-tier vendors willing to disrupt margins in the tablet space.”
Commercial demand for PCs is improving as businesses face up to the need to migrate from Windows XP. But Windows 8 will not be a major beneficiary as many businesses will take the safer option of moving to Windows 7. This provides an opportunity for vendors with strong enterprise sales and an established B2B channel in 2014. Vendors heavily exposed to the consumer notebook market still face an uncertain future. Windows 8 uptake remains weak and the PC refresh cycle shows no sign of returning. With Windows 9 reported to be scheduled for an April 2015 release, Microsoft risks losing momentum unless it does something drastic to turn its Windows business around.
Source: Canalys
MacDailyNews Take: The cream always rises to the top.
Related articles:
Canalys: Apple continues reign as #1 PC maker; grabbed over 20% share of market for first time in Q412 – February 6, 2013
Canalys unafraid to count iPad, puts Apple third in worldwide PC market share – January 26, 2011
Pretty stunning results. I’d rather see sales and profit figures though. They’d probably be even more stunning.
Hmmm, do you mean sold vs shipped?? I agree.
PS, MDN.. “The cream always rises to the top.”
—- except in zero gee environments. 🙂
Interesting.
Back in the day (1990) a couple of the Market Research firms (it may have been IDC and another, but I don’t recall for sure) pegged Apple’s total market share at 19.2% — an all time high for Apple post IBM’s entry into the field of play. However, that included the all of Apple’s computer related sales (not just Mac but Apple ][ and such also). Then as we all know, Apple’s market share eventually got down into the 1% range only to slowly make a comeback.
Now in a similar vein, if we include in Apple’s “computer” shipments items such as tablets, it seems that Apple has surpassed even that peak of years ago.
Well done, Apple. Now go and do better.
Oh, my. How could anyone look at this and not wonder about what might have been? I know these numbers include a bunch of gadgets that are not computers but, WOW – that new Mac Pro could have been the instrument that dominated the world and swept away all the competition. But, alas – first the famous Steve Jobs relegated that possibility to a “truck” off in the ditch then along came Tim with a tiny possibility of pursuing the unlimited potential of the real computer world and what did he do? Well, he promised a bunch of “great new products in the pipeline” that we now know was a lie and years too late, showed up with what might have been. Result: words like “ordinary” “average” “just like all the rest” “uninspiring” “uninspired” “nothing new” “dumbed down” “small screens” “sissy looking iOS” “lost features” “abandoned features” “useless features” and on and on and on now define the once great company.
I’m trashed in this forum for saying such things and some demand that I say what and who could have done better. Answer: just about anyone in the tech world with half a brain. That’s who. What a sad, sad, sad loss of opportunity this is today – whoever thought such a thing would be said about the company that once wowed the world with what they did. Now gone with the wind that blew in the hapless Tim Cook!
How dare you put forth reasoned, intelligent thoughts!
If you blame Obama for anything and everything, you’ll get a much better response around these here parts. 🙂
OK I will bite. The truck medford was right. The PC, including Mac, has become a workhorse. Macs are now designed for the pro market. MacBook Air for business people who travel a lot. People who need pro software that is not resource intensive, like MS Office. MacBook Pro for work that requires intensive software off site. The large iMac comes with a calibrated screen. Something needed by people in pro graphics, and not offered by other desktops. The MacPro is a game changer for high end desktops. iOS 7 is great. Actually, use it and you can understand why. Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs, who is. He does have Apple on the right track. Increase market share proves it.
The idea that the Mac Pro could have been an instrument “that dominated the world and swept away all the competition” is laughable at best. A $3000+ computer with workstation CPUs and graphics is a niche product for niche markets. It’s absolutely a necessary product, but it’s absolutely niche, and nothing more. It’s certainly not an instrument of domination for a modern computer company.
In reality, Jobs was right on the money with his “truck” metaphor. The era of the component desktop PC is OVER, save for the few niche markets who need utmost performance. For the other 95% of the market though, there are far better, more cost-effective options.
As for all those critical words you bring up, I’ll just remind you that people have been saying those things and more about Apple almost since the beginning. I’ve been there since the very beginning, so I know.
Apple is absolutely still the great company it was two, five, and ten years ago. Sorry if you can’t see that simply because you don’t like the typography and icons in iOS 7.
The mantra of the era of the PC being over is not only wrong it is stupid. Well over 300 million of them sold worldwide last year. Apple could have dominated them all, regardless of price, because they were so superior to all the alternatives. Corporate and government customers would have paid whatever it cost to get something even close to the new Mac Pro. But, alas, there weren’t any to be bought. So, the PC market has been dumbed down to what it is and that’s Apple’s fault beginning with Steve’s “truck” blunder and continuing with the hapless Tim Cook. Pads, phones, and mobile versions of real computers are not and will never be replacements for machines with the power of a real computer like the Mac Pro. Te typography and icons are just a stupid symptom of greater stupidity.
You are correct that over 300 million desktop PCs were sold worldwide, but the majority of those sales were in low-priced, low-margin emerging markets. A minority did go to mature markets, most of which consisted of enterprise government and corporate sales like you mentioned, as well as into vertical applications like point-of-sale and industrial controls, markets which Microsoft has traditionally dominated.
Further, in the last 10 years, the average selling price of a desktop computer has gone from just over $800, to under $400. They’re commodities, and they work just fine for most of what those customers do with them. Considering that most of these sales were cheap, under-$500, nearly-no-profit-margin computers, the reality is that Apple couldn’t have even get 10% of all those sales with a $3,000 computer.
What you’re really suggesting is that Apple go after Dell’s no margin part of the market. If that’s really what you believe, you’re beyond ignorant.
No, ecrabb… the ignorance in this discussion is headquartered at Cupertino. If Steve and his team would have settled for your logic, Apple would not exist today. They made things happen through superior products and could have again if they had not been lured into the mobile device frenzy AND given up on computers. What might have been would be unimaginable except for the fact that Apple used to wow the world with the unimaginable. Now, the brand is pretty much like all the others except way behind the numbers of all the rest. AAPL investors don’t think that’s working very well and they are correct.
PC sales shares are dropping every year, yet Mac sales shares and numbers are growing every year. Apple sold a record 4.8 million Macs in the first fiscal quarter. . . and you state they’ve “given up on computers.” They’ve sold more computers than any other company in the world. . . but just not to YOUR myopic definition.
Your analysis is sorely misguided.
I like it when tablets are included with computer sales. It shows how rapidly the market is changing, and the players. HP had a chance with WebOS. They did not put the time and resources they needed to make it work. HP gave up quickly. Dell never got into the game. Now both are paying the price. As Apple expands into other markets, especially China and India, their market share will rapidly expand. The tablet has changed the laptop market. A lot of people are in denial.
yeah, so ???
19% of a dying product line.
hasn’t mr. apple himself indicated we are entering a “post-pc world” ? and are driving us in that direction asap?
yes, i know computers will be around for a long, long time, ( i like my imac and mac-mini and laptop – don’t plan on getting rid of them either)
but the handwriting is on the wall fellas, as are the trend lines. mobile is the future – otherwise they would not be in such a race to be putting as much capability into them.
kind of like the drowning guy coming up for air again… sorta good news for now., but in the long run, not much consolation
That 19% includes iPads, not just desktops and notebooks.
Not at all, there will always be a fair amount of “trucks” on the tech road and what trucks there are can be a very good business consisting of more Macs than PC’s. There is room to actually grow and take more from Microsoft and their partners.
and this is just the beginning of the Windows collapse. HP, Sony, Dell, LG are all abandoning the sinking ship running as far away from the Windows titanic. The only one left will be Levano. And without competition, Windows PC’s will continue to fall behind.
In the early days of lap tops, lap tops were not counted in PC reports, because real PCs were “desktops”. Soon, LTs were included.
Today’s iPads have more computing power than the average desktop of 25 years ago. But the iPad / tablet market is left out of most stats becasue of as lack of keyboard and screen real estate. In 5 years, the PC market will be greatly diminished compared to today. So what will PC pundets say? “Oh, the PC market all but died?” Did technology go backwards? No! It morphed into the future! iPads and tablet market.
Star Trek TNG showed the future of basic computer input! We have barely scratched the surface on “input” yet, and it isn’t keyboarding as Gates insists. Yes, Windows is collapsing and even with the niche PC market in the future, Mac OS will see great gains!
This includes tablet shipments but what about just traditional PC numbers? Apple is doing ok with Macs but it could be better as I’ve said before Apple hardly markets it’s Mac computers.
(those who have read my ‘Apple please market mac’ spiel can skip this post!)
Before people say trad PCs are ‘dying’ etc note Msft in just Windows software sales makes BILLIONS, selling 300 million copies of Win 7 just a year or so into launch. Mac after years still has 5% worldwide .
With many hating Win 8 Apple should be aggressively grabbing Mac share.
But Apple doesn’t market Macs.
5 months delay of iMacs last year because of ‘advanced glass bonding’ etc techniques (costing millions in R&D and helping to Collapse the share price from 700) and when they finally shipped: Not one iMac ad telling people. Everybody including the Salesguys at the Big Box Retailers didn’t even realize they had a new iMac (they thought it was the old mac).
Not one Mac ad for near 5 years since Mac PC guy, Not one Mac Ad taking Advantage of Win 8 fiasco while even with the turd in Msft is still raking tens of billions off windows (that’s just software $) . (People who argue with me saying it’s not a big market : go glance at Msft’s financial reports and count the zeros after the dollar signs ).
While iPads iPhone are new big things: macs are still a Cash Cow and Even Jobs said he would ‘milk Macs for all it’s worth’ even as they move on to new stuff. (does Google lose interest in Search as they move into Goog Glasses and self driving cars?).
Why isn’t Apple aggressively grabbing Mac share with ads with Win 8 out? are they waiting for them to fix it like Win 7 after Vista?
Some pc people frustrated with Win 8 tell me they want a Mac but don’t want to ‘waste their monitors’ : i.e the DO NOT EVEN REALIZE THERE’S A MAC MINI! , they think they need an iMac as Apple DOES NOT ADVERTISE MAC MINIS !!
When I went to my local Walmart ‘supe’r centre to get a Thunderbolt cable for my new Macbook Pro they didn’t have it , sales guys standing next to Thunderbolt equipped macs on display did not know what Thunderbolt was. Frustrated I asked for a mini display port cable : Nope. So if you bought a Mac at my walmart you couldn’t connect an ext monitor to it! Thunderbolt is the new giant Apple Mac initiative (out years already) and Walmart is the one of the largest if not largest apple resellers and my Walmart doesn’t carry the cables! Apple Marketing should be pounding Thunderbolt and Mac advantages to it’s resellers and helping them sell, but nope… And the displays don’t seem to have changed since Steve Jobs, while the new Win 8 are new , the kiosk lit with fluorescent panels and large Monitors.
If you don’t run Mac ads it’s very hard for big box retailers to sell Macs as besides being clueless they won’t badmouth PCs like Dells which they sell. Will a guy at Best Buy tell a customer to get a Mac because the dozens of Dells, Lenovos, HPs in their stores are prone to viruses?
(instead of Apple management spending large amounts of time recently on ‘social’ initiatives perhaps they could spend some time with their resellers? Maybe Tim Cook can have a no warning BLITZ visiting Best Buy and Walmart and see how their apple displays are doing? )
I was in Advertising and PR and just from the top of my head some ideas: besides running ads, I would do stuff like send mailers to people who bought iPad, iPhones asking them “How are enjoying their new iPad? Did they know they have one year free phone support ETC. ” and then attaching a flyer espousing Mac advantages with maybe a time limited discount offer to get a Mac. If they can convert 5 -10% of new iPad iPhone owners to buy Mac that would be tons of new Macs sold.
They could get a few (lowly paid) interns to do demos shoes with the new Mac Pros: stripping it down for High School science classes, computer clubs etc. Showing ‘Made in USA’ tech BEFORE samsung etc copy and cylinder computers become common place. Cheap with great potential for free PR via local newspaper articles, word of mouth etc…
these are just top of my head ideas: those multi million dollar marketing guys in apple can think of more if theres a will at Apple to push their macs.
They already HAVE the Macs, they already have spent all the millions on R&D (advance glass bonding, low consumption batteries etc): so why not PUSH them?
like I said before the slide of aapl from 700 came after two quarters where apple missed analysts targets by small amounts ( if I’m not mistaken about 50 and 200 m) so if they had sold a bit more — maybe macs — perhaps the stock would still be at 700 or higher and Apple management wouldn’t have waste time with Icahns of the world and spend billions on buybacks?
Tim Cook seems to have a gapping hole in marketing smarts (see hiring Browlett ) but he’s a smart dude and hopefully he’s learning (see potential upside with Ahrendts). We need more aggressive Apple marketing.
Sending mailers and doing demos at high school computer clubs for free PR in local newspapers… How long HAS it been since you did advertising and PR? (Just kidding)
I think the problem with advertising the Mac is that it probably isn’t that effective. How do you show in a thirty second commercial just how much better a Mac is? Most people in the world only tolerate Windows at best. You need to convince people to spend double or triple for a better system. I think most people who would make that trade off have already done so. The jump is too big for some to make. And Apple isn’t going to be able to control the Best Buy employees recommend a Mac unless they pay them ala Samsung. That’s why Apple had to build their own stores. The situation is even worse in the developing world. Even if price were no issue, which it is because taxes on foreign products further increase the price differential, most people wouldn’t buy because finding support would be an issue. Try have to make an even bigger leap of faith then the fence-sitters in the developed world.
If only Apple made a device that was smaller and cheaper and could show the whole world how great Apple devices are. People could buy them without the risk of replacing their computer and get to know the Apple advantage. The popularity of these devices could then push Apple into new markets where they previously had no presence. The whole system would create some sort of “halo effect”.
I remember when I first switched to Macs in 1998, I also couldn’t believe that anybody else would use Windows when there was such a better option. Most of us feel this way, and most of us would love to see Apple roll out some Mac ads, but it wouldn’t change much. Apple hasn’t given up on the Mac, they’re getting people into the Apple ecosystem first, Macs second. Apple is skating where the puck is going to be, and a lot more people are coming along for the ride.