As per a new report by IDC, Mac shipments grew almost 10% year-over-year in Q2 2021. While the numbers show a nice increase in global shipments for Apple’s computers, it still puts Mac shipments behind competitors like Lenovo, HP, and Dell.
Mac shipments post a year-over-year increase in Q2 2021, but the overall PC market is showing signs of slowing down
IDC reports that Apple shipped 6.15 million Mac units in the second quarter of 2021, compared to 5.6 million units in the second quarter of 2020. This resulted in a 9.4% growth in shipments for Apple’s computers, which was slightly below the 13% average growth rate across the PC industry.
In Q1 2021, the growth rate was 55.9%, but Apple smashed through these figures with almost triple-digit growth in shipments, year-over-year.
Global Mac shipments grew 94% year-over-year in Q1 2021, due to an increase in the number of people that started working and studying remotely due to the pandemic. These figures were shared by Strategy Analytics, while IDC’s own estimates were not far off, and showed that Mac shipments grew 111.5% year-over-year in Q1 2021.
Along with the pandemic, new M1 Macs might also be a contributing factor towards the increase in shipments due to the value and performance benefits they provide compared to competitors. Apple CEO Tim Cook had announced in April that the company is selling more M1 Macs than Intel Macs. During the Q2 2021 earnings call, Cook had also said that iPad and Mac production will be impacted by the ongoing global chip shortage in Q3 2021.
IDC notes that the market faces “mixed signals as far as demand is concerned” when we look into the rest of 2021. Many businesses are opening up and demand for PC purchases seems to be going down. As many customers had already made PC purchases last year, this will also have an impact on reduced demand this year.
Note that none of these numbers are official, as Apple does not announce shipment numbers for Macs, so take these with a grain of salt.
