It’s no secret that M4 Macs are coming soon. But does the upcoming launch explain the significant nosedive in Mac sales in the past quarter? Let’s hope so, as a new report by Canalys indicates that Macs have experienced a worrying 17.5% drop in worldwide annual growth in the past quarter.
The drop in Mac sales is an anomaly in the larger analysis of PC sales as a whole, which has enjoyed a 1.3% annual growth over last year, which is expected to increase going into the holiday season.
The figures provided by Canalys show a drop to 5.1 million units sold in the third quarter of 2024 compared to 6.2 million units the same quarter from the same period last year, resulting in a 1.8% drop in PC market share. That drops Apple from spot four to five in the top PC brands, with it now sitting right under Asus.
These figures all have to be put into perspective, of course, as Apple doesn’t compete in all the targeted markets that its competitors have a foothold in, namely in enterprise and gaming. The principal analyst at Canalys, Ishan Dutt, attributes the overall growth in the Windows PC market to businesses upgrading their fleets to Windows 11 to “avoid paying extended support fees.” Although support fees for continuing to run Windows 10 won’t come into place until October 2025, it certainly seems like companies are getting ahead of the change.
Still, the drop is a bit alarming, especially since Windows laptops are competing much more strongly with MacBooks in terms of performance and battery life. Windows was early to embrace AI as well, though it’s reasonable to be skeptical that customers are being influenced by talk of “AI PCs.”
Apple, Asus enjoyed the largest jump in annual growth, experiencing a 15.8% increase in annual growth. That’s a pretty big deal, narrowing the gap with Dell, which had a 4% decline in annual growth this past quarter.
Lenovo and HP remain the top dogs, and in particular, Lenovo’s unshakeable lead with 24.5% global market share remains impressive.
But all eyes are on Apple now in this final quarter of 2024. With launches from Microsoft, Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm out of the way, Apple’s upcoming M4 Mac launch remains the last chip to fall. Along with the new chips, Apple will also officially launch macOS Sequoia, which will introduce Apple Intelligence to the Mac, though some features will be missing at launch.
The new products will no doubt help, but we’ll have to see if they are able to completely reverse the trend over the next quarter. It’s worth noting that the launch likely won’t yet include an update to the MacBook Air, the company’s bestselling laptop. Instead, we’re expecting the M4 to launch in updated iMacs, Mac minis, and MacBook Pros.