M1 Mac mini catapulted Apple to number one in Japanese desktop PC market

The new M1-equipped Mac mini has propelled Apple to the number one spot in the Japanese desktop PC market in the two weeks after the device's launch.

That's according to new data from Japanese analysis firm BCN Retail, which aggregated the sales data of mass retailers and online stores in the country. In the period between August 1 and November 3, Apple held a 15% share of the desktop PC market in Japan and was fighting for third place with Lenovo.

With the launch of the first Apple Silicon Mac mini on November 17, BCN Retail tracked a surge in Apple computer sales that resulted in the Cupertino tech giant taking the number one spot by sales volume. BCN Retail reports that Apple now has 27.1% of the market, increasing 14.4% percentage points in a single week.

Apple's Mac lineup has had one of the best years in some time in 2020, driven largely by tailwinds from the new remote education and work-from-home environment during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In its Q4 2020 earnings report, Apple announced all-time record high revenues for the Mac segment.

The 2020 Mac mini is Apple's first desktop with a proprietary M1 chipset, which includes an eight-core CPU, eight-core GPU, and unified memory. In benchmark testing, the M1 chip beat out the higher-tier Intel Mac mini by large margins.

Apple's new M1-equipped Mac mini starts at $699, which nets users the M1 chip, 8GB of unified memory, and 256GB of internal SSD storage.

21 Comments

blastdoor 15 Years · 3603 comments

About 4 years ago

The price/performance/volume and per watt of the mini means that for some use cases, buying a ton of them and putting them in a server rack might make a lot of sense.

For my own purposes the biggest hang up is the lack of a FORTRAN compiler. Next time I’m in the market to replace my Linux box, I’ll seriously consider 4 minis if they continue to be this competitive and the compiler issue is resolved.

MisterKit 8 Years · 516 comments

Wow. Apple really hit it out of the park with M1. They really are years ahead with this. it may even be an insurmountable lead. Advances like this do just not just fall from trees. M1 reflects 10 year or more R&D, and the ability to put all the pieces together.

CheeseFreeze 7 Years · 1341 comments

It’a a phenomenal computer. I’ve been enjoying it so far.

steven n. 13 Years · 1229 comments

blastdoor said:

The price/performance/volume and per watt of the mini means that for some use cases, buying a ton of them and putting them in a server rack might make a lot of sense.

For my own purposes the biggest hang up is the lack of a FORTRAN compiler. Next time I’m in the market to replace my Linux box, I’ll seriously consider 4 minis if they continue to be this competitive and the compiler issue is resolved.

What about Abstoft's FORTRAN compiler? Likewise, I think GCC (with the gfortan option) can compile FORTRAN code.

cloudguy 4 Years · 323 comments

blastdoor said:

The price/performance/volume and per watt of the mini means that for some use cases, buying a ton of them and putting them in a server rack might make a lot of sense.

For my own purposes the biggest hang up is the lack of a FORTRAN compiler. Next time I’m in the market to replace my Linux box, I’ll seriously consider 4 minis if they continue to be this competitive and the compiler issue is resolved.

Wait, isn't there an gcc-fortran extension of the gcc compiler for ARM Linux?

https://archlinuxarm.org/packages/arm/gcc-fortran

I thought that gcc not working on M1 was just a rumour?