Till Q4, 2022, Apple Silicon Macs saw strong demand while the global PC market plummeted. Even when the global shipments for traditional PCs declined by 28.1% year-over-year, Apple shipped 7.5 million Macs in Q4, 2022.
For the same quarter, Mac sales generated record revenue of $11.5 billion for the tech giant. At the Q4, 2022 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook explained that M2 MacBook Pro and M2 MacBook Air drove Mac’s all-time record revenue. However, 2023 did not kick off well for Apple Silicon Macs.
A new report by The Elec claims that Apple completely paused M2 series chips production in January and February this year for the first time because of weak demand for MacBook models powered by M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Max chips.
In 2022, Apple launched the next-generation M2 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro (13-inch models), and in January 2023, the company introduced new Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro chips and 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips.
The tech giant claims that M2 series chips deliver up to 20 faster performance than their predecessor M1 series chips. Even then, new MacBook models powered by M2 series chips did not impress the consumers much to purchase or upgrade their existing computers.
Apple expects to sell 50% fewer M2 MacBooks in 2023 than it did in 2022
The report also details that the tech giant resumed chip production in March but only half of the previous year. This shows that Apple Apple expects to sell 50% fewer M2 MacBooks in 2023 than it did in 2022.
It has been confirmed that Apple completely stopped production of the system-on-chip (SoC) ‘M2 series’ for MacBooks in January and February.
Some production resumed from March, but it was found that it was only half of the previous year. This is the first time Apple has stopped producing chips. The expert explained that the slump in the finished product market, such as PC, is evidence that it is more serious than expected.
Having said that, the company was prepared to face sluggish sales of MacBook powered by M2 series chips. For Q1, 2023 (October-December 2022), Mac sales generated $7.73 billion with a 30% decline from $10.852 billion for the same quarter the previous year.
At the Q1, 2023 earnings call, Tim Cook said, “I think we have a competitive advantage with silicon (M2 chip, etc.), but it will be very difficult in the short term.”
