Adding cheese grater functionality and a $50,000 config option was apparently not enough to stem the decline of Mac sales in the past year. A Gartner market research study indicates that Apple lost 3.0 percent of its market share in the PC space between 2018 and 2019. In contrast, Dell registered double-digit growth over this same period.
The study gives us a good overview of the nature of the PC market today. Lenovo and HP are market leaders by a significant margin. Each commands in excess of 22 percent market share. Dell is a close third at around 17 percent. It registered the biggest year-on-year gains. Meanwhile, Apple, Acer, and Asus all languish in the single-digit range.
Every other manufacturer put together accounts for another 16 percent of the market. What’s worrying is that Apple’s decline in market share is the highest among the top six vendors. As a matter of fact, among the others, only Asus even registered a decline. Lenovo, HP, Acer, and Dell all witnessed healthy increases in their market shares.
From a volume perspective, what this means is that Apple sold 5.26 million Macs last year. In some ways, this number is actually more helpful. It’s important to note that Apple’s profitability per unit is markedly higher than the competition. A high-profit margin on each Mac sold could offset the decline in total numbers. And regardless of the state of Mac sales, Apple’s revenue continues to be buoyed by healthy iPhone and i-ecosystem sales.
But as HP Australia’s brilliant short series says, it might be “time to move on” for Mac users.
