The Mac line is Apple’s range of desktop and portable personal computers based on its OS X operating system. They include the iMac, the Mac Pro, the Mac Mini, the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air, which is assumed to be discontinued as of 2016.
Apple’s desktop and portable computers lineup has shown impressive sales growth from 2006 until 2015, almost consistently growing year-over-year in unit volume as well as revenue.
In 2016, however, Mac sales started showing signs of weakness. Compared to 2015 Mac revenues of $25.471 billion from the sale of 20.587 million Macs, Apple only made $22.831 billion, selling 18.484 million units. That’s a 10% drop on both fronts. In 2015, Mac sales grew by 6% in terms of revenue and 9% in terms of unit sales compared to 2014. In 2014, Mac revenue grew 12% and unit sales grew 16% over 2013.
As you can see, until last year Apple Mac was growing from strength to strength despite the weak PC market, which started declining after 2011. That means Apple managed to hold off the inevitable for four years before finally being forced to give in to the softening market.
In terms of growth history, Mac sales have grown from 5.3 million units in 2006 to 20.5 million in 2016, a period which saw PC sales strongly accelerating from 239.2 million units to 365 million units during the 2006-2011 period, and subsequently retreating to 288.7 million units as of 2015. Apple’s market share has moved from a mere 2.2% in 2006 to 7.1% in 2015.
Mac’s unit sales improved when the overall PC shipments declined around the world during the 2011-2015 period. But in the first nine months of the current fiscal Mac sales dropped by 9%, from 14.8 million units last year to 13.6 million units this year, as we saw – that’s in line with global PC shipments, which declined in high single digits throughout this year.
How is Apple Going to Turn Things Around in Mac Sales?
After going against the tide for four years, Apple’s Mac seems to have lost a lot of steam. Many say that one of the reasons is that they haven’t upgraded their devices in a long time. The only saving grace is the new MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar, and that seems to be selling well. In fact, Apple pricing the variant without the Touch Bar at $1299 could well have prompted Microsoft to slash $250 from its own Surface Book price tag to bring it down to $1249 and more in line with the MacBook Pro’s base model.
Apple has made a good start in refreshing its lineup, but is it too little too late? Granted, the higher pricing on the Touch Bar variants of the MacBook Pro could bring Mac revenues back to positive growth for fiscal 2017, but that’s just one product refresh so far.
With no word on a MacBook Air refresh or new versions of any of the other Mac products for now, that’s going to put a lot of pressure on the MacBook Pro 2016 to perform.
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