Gartner and IDC: Apple's Share of Declining U.S. PC Market Grows to 13.6%

[Akshay Masand]

Source: Gartner

IDC and Gartner recently released their third quarter reports for PC shipments today and although Apple isn’t in the top 5 vendors for worldwide shipments, estimates from the two firms puts Apple’s share of the U.S. market at 12.5% to 13.6%.

Gartner's numbers have the total market decline being indicated at 13.8% and more specifically Apple with 13.6% of the U.S. market (compared to the 12.5% that was estimated in Q3 of 2011). Apple’s market position seems to firmly be behind that of Dell and HP. Lenovo is the only company which saw an increase while Apple remained to be the company which slowed down the least compared to the rest.

Source: IDC

Apple captured 12.5% of the U.S. PC shipments according to IDC numbers in the third quarter, up from 11.8% in the same quarter last year. Overall, Apple faced a year over year unit decline of 7% but market leaders Dell and HP posted shipment declines of 16% and 18.8% respectively, while shipments in total were down 12.4% as a whole.

The following statement sums up the positions of the top 5 manufacturers alongside Apple:

Four of the top 5 vendors in the U.S. market experienced shipment declines. HP maintained the No. 1 position in the U.S. market despite a shipment decline of 19.3 percent (see Table 2). Lenovo was the only vendor among the top 5 to increase shipments. Both Acer and Toshiba shipments declined significantly due to the tough environment in the consumer market. Apple expected to have a PC shipment decline due to softness in the public market, but the company faced a slowdown in the consumer market.

The slowdown may be attributed to the fact that the Cupertino California company has not yet released a refresh for the iMac which has been much anticipated. Rumors have continuously pointed towards the refresh being around the corner and analysts are expecting the refresh to be released before 2013. It’s likely that the release of the new lineup may possibly help Apple shift from its slowdown to a gradual increase despite the market decline.

Source: IDC, Gartner via AppleInsider

[TechnoUniversity]

If Apple goes down this path of making their computers unchangeable, I won't be buying another one. Can't upgrade the ram on my own freaking Mac is some bull. That refers to the retina display MacBook Pro for all you who don't know.

[MgNate]

I wanted one but I built a PC instead. Repairs are way too much for my MacBook Pro!

[thazsar]

If Ape goes down this path of making their computers unchangeable, I won't be buying another one. Can't upgrade the ram on my own freaking Mac is some bull. That refers to the retina display MacBook Pro for all you who don't know.

Really?!?! Is it built like a MB Air where the RAM is soldered in? If so, I had no idea since I haven't looked at the specs/construction of the Retina MBs, yet. Lame!!!

[TechnoUniversity]

Really?!?! Is it built like a MB Air where the RAM is soldered in? If so, I had no idea since I haven't looked at the specs/construction of the Retina MBs, yet. Lame!!!

Yessir it is. It really bothers me that they did this.

[bisayakid07]

Yessir it is. It really bothers me that they did this.

This would change my mind from buying MBP😞

If Apple goes down this path of making their computers unchangeable, I won't be buying another one. Can't upgrade the ram on my own freaking Mac is some bull. That refers to the retina display MacBook Pro for all you who don't know.

I'm not buying for sure. I really appreciate it

[thazsar]

Yessir it is. It really bothers me that they did this.

That SUX!!!

[Mrteacup]

"others" is the next biggest tech company! they are always in the infographics with lots of percentages!

[Norb]

I'm really confused by the layout of that chart. Why is 2012 on the left and 2011 on the right? It looks opposite of what it's trying to show. Why would you show growth in a negative percentage like that?