Mac sales growth up 13% in Q3 on remote work, education trends

Apple Mac shipments rose 13% in the third quarter of 2020 alongside similar growth across the broader PC market, according to new data from Canalys.

The latest estimates indicate that the PC market grew 12.7% during the quarter ending in September, with vendors shipping a total of 79.2 million computers during the period. Growth was driven largely by new remote work and education trends adopted during the coronavirus pandemic.

Apple saw slightly better than average growth numbers during its fourth fiscal quarter. It shipped 6.4 million macOS devices, an increase of 13.2% year-over-year, Canalys estimates indicate.

Due to the broader PC growth, Apple's share of the market didn't change much. It increased from 8% to 8.1%. Apple's Mac shipments still ranked fourth during the quarter, placing the company behind Lenovo in first place, HP in second, and Dell in third. Lenovo shipped 19.2 million units during the period, while HP shipped 18.6 million, Dell shipped 11.9 million, and Acer shipped 5.6 million.

"As the line between work and home lives is increasingly blurred, it becomes important to position devices towards a wide array of use cases, with a focus on mobility, connectivity, battery life, and display and audio quality. Differentiation in product portfolios to capture key segments such as education and mainstream gaming will also provide pockets of growth," said Canalys Research Director Rushabh Doshi.

Global notebook shipments reached 64 million units in Q3 2020, nearly eclipsing the record high of 64.6 million shipments set in Q4 2011. Shipments of notebooks and laptops grew 28.3% year-over-year, while desktops and workstations shrank 26% in the same period.

Apple itself will reveal how well the Mac segment did during an earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific on Oct. 29. During its previous earnings calls, Apple reported revenue that smashed Wall Street expectations. Mac sales were up in the quarter 21.6% and hit $7.1 billion in the third fiscal quarter.

Notably, the Cupertino tech giant is also expected to release its first Mac devices with first-party Apple silicon chips later in 2020.

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8 Comments

Beats 3073 comments · 4 Years

About 4 years ago

Apple Silicon is gonna drive Mac sales through the roof.

iOS_Guy80 899 comments · 5 Years

Isn’t Apple‘s fourth-quarter July, August and September?

red oak 1104 comments · 13 Years

I will not be surprised if Apple Silicon drives Apple unit share to 20% in five years, and industry profit share north of 50%

I is going to be a game changer

CloudTalkin 916 comments · 5 Years

iOS_Guy80 said:

Isn’t Apple‘s fourth-quarter July, August and September?

Canalys uses calendar year quarters in their estimates. Jul-Sept is 3rd calendar quarter.

GeorgeBMac 11421 comments · 8 Years

A couple years ago I bought a 6th Gen iPad for my grandson after watching Apple's education event thinking his school would soon be incorporating computer based learning. I was wrong. It mostly collected dust. Then, this past Christmas I got him a MacBook Air for essentially the same reason. But again, it mostly collected dust.

UNTIL the virus hit the U.S.: Starting last April he switched to cyberschool which continues to this day. While he is struggling with it, his equipment has performed flawlessly.

His school promised to deliver Dell 2-in-1 devices at the start of school but they finally arrived earlier this week. But, he's still using his iPad (with pencil for solving math problems) and his MacBook for more traditional uses and for the video classroom work -- and both continue to perform flawlessly while the fancy new Dell thing collects dust. It's too small and too slow and the stylus is crap compared to the Apple pencil --- so why would he want to take a step down?