MacBook Pro and MacBook Air sales dwarf sales of Mac desktops like iMac, Mac min, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro. The latest Mac report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) reveals that in 2023, 90% of Mac sales were comprised of MacBook Pro (51%) and MacBook Air (39%).
Andrew Orr for AppleInsider:
The remaining 10% of sales is distributed fairly uniformly across the various desktop Macs available. The iMac and Mac Pro comprise 4% and 3% of the total sales, respectively.
Then both the Mac mini and the Mac Studio represent just 1% of US Mac sales each.
Within the MacBook Air sales, there’s a small but noticeable preference for the larger screen size. About 53% of buyers chose the 15-inch model.
With the MacBook Pro, the small difference is reversed as 54% chose the 14-inch edition, while 46% bought the 16-inch model.
MacDailyNews Take: Now you know why Apple doesn’t seem to give two sheets about a larger iMac or, really, any other desktop Mac.
If the company were a bit more focused, they’d currently have an insanely portable, ultralight 11-inch MacBook with extraordinary battery life in the lineup, too, as it’d very likely outsell every desktop Mac — perhaps every desktop Mac combined — too.
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They used to be in schools, they abandoned that. they used to be for the common people, they ignored that. they used to bush the Mac Desktop because that’s what they had. Now the stock is down $10 and Apple is choosing the wrong decisions. they are loosing their income streams, with the economy like it is I predict the stock will lose another $10-15, because people can’t afford their “luxury brand” any more. so Where will Apple go now? not the Apple car or Vision Pro, What else to look forward to?
Macs have never been better or better value.
Your kidding right? a Mac Pro is $7k. Before you can get one for less than $3k and that opened it up to a lot of people, $7k is just too much. The pro-sumer market was very open to that price range, mac pros are in a lot of studios, think they will reconsider when upgrading now? get a pc for $3k or a mac pro for $7k? hmm.
iPhones and iPads are for the common people now. Macs are now professional tools.
If Apple pushes that to fast and people move back to PCs for home use, iOS stickiness will take a hit.
They aren’t going to compete with Nvidia on high-end graphics stuff, at best they’ll catch up to their rivals in AI (which isn’t saying much), services are growing but they’ll always be supplemental to their hardware business, they won’t sell crapbook-class iPhones or Macs, what’s left?
How about giving people everything they want in an iPad and Mac in one device? Enough of the nickel-and-diming to get everyone to own 3-4 computers. Make the most awesome tablet/laptop hybrids that you can at a reasonable price and seize the market.
Incremental, IV-drip improvements aren’t going to work for another decade, probably not even 5 years. Neither is a folding iPad that runs the same stale software. 2-3 years to release a mass-market Apple Vision will be too late if they think that alone will carry them forward with nothing special in the interim.
Computers are expensive necessities for most people. They buy the least expensive mac that can meet their needs. For most people the least expensive Mac that will cover their needs is a basic Mac laptop with the lowest standard storage and memory.
Having said that, I still see a lot of 27 inch iMacs in Offices. As of yet they are still holding out for a new large screen iMac which may never arrive.
I suspect that these users may ultimately leave the Mac. Why? They came to the large screen iMac for two reasons.
One, they prefer working on a computer with a large screen and a numeric keypad.
Two, they came to Apple because they liked the clean all in one design without a bunch of cables hanging over their desk. Several of these users have told me they bought a large screen iMac because they didn’t want a box and they aren’t ready to go back to a box. Hence, I see a lot of very old iMacs still in service.
Same experience here, my university switch back to Windows-Boxes after there was no really an alternative to the 27-Inch-iMac.
If Apple didn’t care why are they making and updating the Mac mini the Studio and even the Pro?
Because they are higher profit margin products than the all-in-one iMacs. They’d MUCH rather sell you a Mini or a Studio with a $1600+ Studio display or even a $6000+ XDR display tacked on.
We converted our whole company to Mac over the past few years from Windows. Mostly Minis with MacBook Pros for managers and the execs. Our IT expenses plummeted as the support issues dwindled to near zero and the users, even those who loved Windows, all became true believers. The upgrade/replacement cycle was stretched out and easily made up for the higher up front cost of the machines. If it wasn’t for a garbage UPS program we have to use, there would not be a Windows machine anywhere on our properties. So many companies do not understand the difference between cost and value to the detriment of their bottom line.
Your story was much more commonly told a fews yrs ago…esp coincidental to the “Why Mac” commercials. Too bad Apple has largely put this kind of story on the backburner…bathing in the iPh profit may play a part and the spirt of Mac for work veracity. Such a good story in SO many ways…good for the cheerleader, but esp good as it quiets the “expensive” groan and turns the look to the total cost of ownership.
It was not easy. It started when I joined the company and insisted I would supply my own computer as I refused to use Windows. The owner of the company wanted me on board and so agreed, even offering to pay for my Mac, though I declined. In a year I had converted him. The former company president fought me because he was cheap and loved the price tag of cheap Windows PCs. When, one day our IT support service manager mentioned in conversation he had endless issues with his clients using Windows machines and those with Macs he “never hears from them”, the lights finally went on Value compared to cost. Then it was simply a matter of waiting for the Windows units to barf (did not take long) and overcoming the Windows hard core types in the Accounting department. Once they learned the Mac OS navigation differences, they were a bit embarrassed they had made such a stink about it.
This “total cost of ownership” (TCO) being radically lower for Macs than Windows boxes has been around for a long, long time. It has never changed.
Some of you may even remember a study back in the 90s by Intel about their internal experiences. The study was across may different departments at Intel. It showed that the lowest TCO was with ≈ 96% Macs and ≈ 4% Windows (what we used to call “Wintel”). (The report did not state why ≈ 4% were necessary to be Wintel. Though I suspect it was to run niche software that was Wintel only and maybe required Wintel specific hardware dongles to run.) Within days of the report becoming public Intel made sure the study results were no longer public.
Macs having a higher initial price but a much lower TCO has been proven time and time again since that time (and likely even before). It does not matter if the Macs were 68000 based, PowerPC based, Intel based, or now M-series based.
3% for the Mac Pro on marketshare. Now do profit share. The amount of gross profit for each Mac Pro is 4-10x something like an air. Now let that sink in.
Apple is just dumb and lazy and run by John Sculley 2.0 and being destroyed by too many bozos. The company needs to fire 90% of its useless cruft bozo employees. Apple, under jobs spent far less and produced far more, every year, than it can now.
It spends more and more to produce less and less.
Bozo run company being destroyed from within by a rotten woke loser bozo culture.
It’s just a fact of business that you’re not going to spend the same amount of time and resources on products that don’t sell as well. COVID changed many organizations to embrace a work from home or hybrid approach which requires portability. For those that need serious desktop power, they will pay a premium for it.
That being said, I love the look of the blue iMac but most users cannot justify buying a workstation that anchors their productivity to a specific workstation.
There used to be a big performance difference between laptops and desktops. The new MBAs (or even the ones from 2 years ago) are so fast that most people will never test their limits. Those that will get MBPs. Given the relatively small performance benefit (for most people) and the fact that battery life is now amazing, it’s not surprising that few people buy desktops.
I still love having a desktop as the ‘hub’ for all my files of videos, music, text, emails, medical, and financial not to mention photos.
But I also love the MacBook Pro I am using in a hotel 900 miles from home right now. I also love being able to take it 30 feet from my desktop and plopping down on the sofa to enjoy streaming in Roon or some vinyl on my hifi while surfing the web.
But then again, I equally enjoy my 4-wheel drive truck AND my ridiculously fast muscle car….
(it’s all about balance)
And I suspect that desktop sales across the board are down compared to laptops. One company I know has ditched desktops altogether so employees can take work from home.
thanks for sharing