Apple's MacBook business grew 39% in the September quarter

Apple's Mac notebook segment grew 39% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2020 amid similar increases across the industry, according to new data from Strategy Analytics.

The company maintained its spot as the fourth-largest manufacturer of notebook computers during the period, shipping a total of six million macOS devices from July through September. That period corresponds with Apple's fourth quarter.

Apple's 39% growth is in line with the trend across the notebook industry. Between the top five notebook manufacturers globally, the total rate of year-over-year growth during Q3 2020 was 34%, Strategy Analytics reported.

Credit: Strategy Analytics

HP saw the highest rate of growth during the third quarter with a 43% increase year-over-year, which allowed it to edge out Lenovo and become the number-one notebook vendor. Lenovo, Dell, Apple, and Acer filled out the rest of the top five, in that order.

Apple maintained 9.7% of the total notebook market share during Q3 2020, up from 9.3% the previous year. HP and Lenovo both tied for first with 23.6%, while Dell came in before Apple with 13.7%. In total, HP shipped about 14.7 million units during Q3 2020, Lenovo shipped 14.6 million, Dell shipped 8.5 million, and Acer shipped 4.9 million.

Growth during the third quarter was largely driven by new work-from-home and remote education trends during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. During the period, vendors were actually constrained by supply issues because of the record-breaking demand.

Credit: Strategy Analytics

"The third quarter would have been even more productive for some vendors if they were able to deliver more devices to meet high demand. Supply will remain a key concern as demand is expected to stay high... consumers have started their purchases before the holiday season to prepare for the new 'normal' of working and studying from home," said Chirag Upadhyay, a senior research analyst at Strategy Analytics.

During its Oct. 29 earnings call, Apple reported record-smashing revenue of $9 billion for the Mac during the September quarter, up 29% year-over-year. Apple CEO Tim Cook did admit that the company was seeing supply constraints across its products, including in the Mac segment.

In November, Apple unveiled a new lineup of Apple Silicon Mac devices equipped with the first-generation M1 chip. Those models are shipping out to customers as of the week of Nov. 16.

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21 Comments

Xed 5 Years · 2900 comments

About 4 years ago

I expect M-series Macs will make this j7mp considerably higher. 📈

mcdave 20 Years · 1927 comments

De facto corporate purchasing. Nothing to be gained from this info.

Beats 5 Years · 3073 comments

mcdave said:

De facto corporate purchasing. Nothing to be gained from this info.

Oh so these sales don’t count?

cloudguy 5 Years · 323 comments

Xed said:

I expect M-series Macs will make this j7mp considerably higher. 📈

Why? Despite months of claiming otherwise - and my warning against it - the cost of entry for a MacBook remains $999, twice as much as a Windows or ChromeOS notebook with (the former MBA entry level specs) an Intel Core i3 processor and 8 GB RAM.

Also - despite what Apple fans have spent the last 20 years being determined to believe - interest in iPods, iPhones, iPads, AirPods and the Apple Watch have not increased the demand for macOS as a PC platform. Similarly, people who would rather spend $1200 on a Dell XPS right now aren't going to be any more likely to switch to a MacBook Air or Pro just because Apple designed the chip. You have to be an Apple fan to even care that Apple is making the chip instead of Intel (or AMD or whoever) and people like that own Macs already anyway.

The Mac being faster will increase the market share some but realize that most people don't buy computers based on raw horsepower any more than - say - most people buy smartphones for it. (Remember when the iPhone SE 2020 was supposed to turn the smartphone world on its head and lure all those platform switchers by providing an A13 chip for $399? Didn't happen.)

I have stated it more than a few times: Apple using their own CPUs in their computers is a huge story for diehard Apple fans - which includes most of the media - but not much of one for the market at large.

larryjw 10 Years · 1036 comments

cloudguy said:

Xed said:

I expect M-series Macs will make this j7mp considerably higher. 📈

Why? Despite months of claiming otherwise - and my warning against it - the cost of entry for a MacBook remains $999, twice as much as a Windows or ChromeOS notebook with (the former MBA entry level specs) an Intel Core i3 processor and 8 GB RAM.

Also - despite what Apple fans have spent the last 20 years being determined to believe - interest in iPods, iPhones, iPads, AirPods and the Apple Watch have not increased the demand for macOS as a PC platform. Similarly, people who would rather spend $1200 on a Dell XPS right now aren't going to be any more likely to switch to a MacBook Air or Pro just because Apple designed the chip. You have to be an Apple fan to even care that Apple is making the chip instead of Intel (or AMD or whoever) and people like that own Macs already anyway.

The Mac being faster will increase the market share some but realize that most people don't buy computers based on raw horsepower any more than - say - most people buy smartphones for it. (Remember when the iPhone SE 2020 was supposed to turn the smartphone world on its head and lure all those platform switchers by providing an A13 chip for $399? Didn't happen.)

I have stated it more than a few times: Apple using their own CPUs in their computers is a huge story for diehard Apple fans - which includes most of the media - but not much of one for the market at large.

Apple doesn't agree with you. The number of first time Apple laptop buyers that are switchers has been increasing. Apple doesn't sell the most smart phones either. And Apple has shown their owners are not as price conscious as those buying into the PC market. And Apple's ROI is higher.

I don't know what stats you expect to see? Apple will never have a top-selling laptop -- they don't need to.