Apple next week will again boast that sales of its Mac line of personal computers beat the industry average, assuming estimates by researcher IDC hold up.
IDC published Q1 shipment estimates last week for the top five PC makers but unlike the previous period, Apple did not make the cut, outdone by the likes of Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Asus.
Today, IDC research analyst Rajani Singh disclosed her firm’s Apple preliminary estimate as 4.45 million Macs, several hundred thousand less than the fifth-place Asus’ 4.8 million.
IDC’s 4.45 million for Apple, however, would be an increase of almost 8% over the same period of 2014, when the company sold 4.13 million Macs. The researcher’s Q1 bet would account for about 6.5% of all personal computers.
If IDC’s forecast turns out accurate, it would mean Mac sales again outpaced those of the PC industry as a whole: The research firm said that global shipments were down almost 7% in Q1 compared to the same three-month stretch the year before, with the biggest drop in the catch-all ‘others’ category.
Of the March quarter’s top five manufacturers, HP, Lenovo and Asus posted gains between 3.3% and 4.4%, said IDC, while Dell and Acer declined 6.3% and 7%, respectively.
IDC came close to nailing Apple’s number last quarter, erring on the high side. In January, it forecast 5.75 million Macs for 2014’s Q4, or 4% higher than the record 5.52 million Apple booked for the period.
According to Singh, Mac sales were flat, more or less, in the US and Japan last quarter, but strong – and up – in China and Western Europe. Mac shipments grew just 2% in the US, for example. “Apple won’t do super great relative to its peers in the US,” said Singh, pointing out that IDC’s estimates had HP’s domestic shipments up nearly 10% and Lenovo’s up almost 9%.
Apple will reveal first-quarter Mac sales on 27 April when it holds its next earnings call.
IDG News Service
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