According to preliminary estimates by Gartner, Apple’s U.S. Mac sales hold 15.1% share of the U.S. personal computer market in the first quarter of 2021. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 69.9 million units in the first quarter of 2021, an increase of 32% from the first quarter of 2020. The market rebounded from a weak first quarter of 2020 to record the fastest year-over-year growth since Gartner began tracking the PC market in 2000.
“This growth should be viewed in the context of two unique factors: comparisons against a pandemic-constrained market and the current global semiconductor shortage,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner, in a statement. “Without the shipment chaos in early 2020, this quarter’s growth may have been lower. However, semiconductor shortages are now adversely affecting the supply chain once again, with shipment lead times for some PCs extending to as long as four months.
“While this may lead to lower shipment numbers, it is still reasonable to conclude that PC demand could remain strong even after stay-home restrictions ease. Moving forward, vendors and suppliers will be closely balancing the need to meet underlying demand without creating excess inventory.”
While Gartner does not include Chromebooks in its traditional PC market results, Chromebook shipments grew by triple digits in the first quarter of 2021, compared to a year ago, with growth primarily driven by investment among educational institutions in North America. Including Chromebooks, the total worldwide PC market grew 47% year-over-year.
The top three vendors in the worldwide PC market remained unchanged from the previous quarter, with Lenovo maintaining the top spot by shipments. All of the top six vendors experienced double-digit growth, and all, except Dell, gained market share compared to a year ago (see Table 1).
Table 1. Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q21 (Thousands of Units)
Source: Gartner (April 2021)
Regional Overview
The U.S. market saw strong growth of 24.1% compared to a year ago. Echoing global trends, shipments of deskbased PCs continued to decline but were offset by a robust mobile PC market, with mobile PCs showing 49% growth.
“The positive results in the U.S. reflect a more optimistic economic environment in 2021 compared to 2020 when the market experienced multiple uncertainties due to the pandemic, as well as political and social unrest,” said Ms. Kitagawa.
HP once again secured the top spot in the U.S. PC market based on shipments with 27% market share. Dell closely followed with 26.6% of the U.S. PC market (see Table 2).
Table 2. Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q21 (Thousands of Units)
Source: Gartner (April 2021)
In the first quarter of 2021, the EMEA PC market was in line with worldwide growth trends, experiencing 30.9% year-over-year growth to 22.4 million units. The ongoing and, in some cases, increased lockdowns across multiple countries continued to fuel demand for notebooks and Chromebooks to support remote learning and consumer entertainment. Moreover, consumers are upgrading older systems to move beyond limitations such as short battery life, slower speeds and smaller screens.
The Asia Pacific PC market saw strong double-digit growth (37.6%) in the first quarter of 2021. While this figure is partially inflated due to a weak first quarter of 2020, healthy consumer demand and a rebound in desktops from business demands contributed to a strong market. In China specifically, the PC market experienced particularly high growth of 70% year-over-year.
MacDailyNews Take: Notice how Gartner counts “ultramobile premiums (such as Microsoft Surface),” but not Apple’s iPads, notably not even iPad Pro units, as including them as personal computers, which the most certainly are, would obliterate their false little narrative. These firms exist in part to help influence consumer behavior and buying preferences by making some platforms look like they’re winning, even when they’re losing or have already lost.
Note also that Gartner’s estimates once again don’t gibe with IDC’s estimates, unsurprisingly.
IDC likely includes the Surface in this group since it has an Intel processor and runs Windows 10. Microsoft even markets one variant of the Surface as the “Surface Laptop”. The iPad Pro uses a variant of the iPhone processor and runs iOS and is always marketed as a tablet.
That does not mean the distinction is proper, but it is one way to make a differentiation.
The Apple Silicon Mac came along just in time. If Apple is willing to price Mac desktops and laptops reasonably, they could really make a killing. I doubt Apple will ever have a better chance than now. One thing I never quite understand is where does Apple’s iPad fit in, especially the iPad Pros with the Magic Keyboard. It’s as though they’re put in some sort of purgatory and don’t fit anywhere. Sure, Apple is making good money from selling iPads, but where are the reports where the sales numbers are being counted. Honestly, iPad Pros likely cost more than most of those Windows laptops.
Soooo… Even Microsoft (doing their dumb easily influenced people ads), target the iPad Pro against the Surface… But Gartner doesn’t include those sales. Please…
“A lot of people have been asking me to compare the Surface with the iPad.” Really? An actor kid being asked by people to do product comparisons? I suppose those people work at Microsoft on the Surface marketing team, right?…
If MS Surface can get 5%, imagine what Apple would have with Mac and iPad combined in the stats. Probably #1 on that chart.
Let’s be real. The iPhone(s) and iPads are “personal computers”. Many people and some businesses use iPads as their only computer as do many people. If these companies really wanted to do any real world comparisons, it wouldn’t even be close. Apple sells more computers than any company in the world. Gartner, like others, needs to make figures tell their narrative or they won’t make money, period.