IDC found that Apple Mac sales reportedly plunged 41% in the first quarter from a year ago, while PC makers saw global shipments dive, as well.
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Global personal-computer shipments plunged 29% in the first quarter, amid a combination of weak demand, excess inventory, and a declining macroeconomic environment, new data from International Data Corp. show.
Overall shipments in the quarter dropped to 56.9 million units. That’s below the pandemic surge, and also under the prepandemic era: Shipments in the 2019 first quarter were 59.2 million units, and shipments in the first quarter of 2018 were 60.6 million units.
IDC said that sales-channel inventory is still well above normal, and that elevated inventory is likely to persist into the middle of the year and potentially into the third quarter.
IDC’s data show substantial year-over-year first-quarter declines for all major PC makers.
Lenovo
remained the market-share leader, with 12.7 million units, but that reflected a 30.3% drop from the year ago period.
HP
(ticker: HPQ) sales were 12 million units, down 24.2%, while
Dell Technologies
(DELL) unit sales dropped 31% to 9.5 million.
Apple
(AAPL) shipped just 4.1 million Macs in the quarter, down 40.5% from a year ago. Taiwanese PC maker
ASUS
rounded out the top five with 3.9 million units, down 30.3%.
HP’s decline was consistent with its financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter ended in January, which reflected a 24% decline in both revenue and unit sales. HP CEO Enrique Lores at the time said he expected full-year industrywide PC unit sales to be down in the high teens. Dell’s client-systems group, the company’s PC business, saw revenue declined 23% in the same period, and the company had projected a midteens revenue decline for the group for the company’s April quarter.
The Apple figure from IDC is a little more surprising. In reporting December quarter results, Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said the company anticipated a double-digit decline in revenue for the March quarter for both Macs and iPads, but Street consensus estimates call for 6 million units, well above the IDC estimate. Street revenue estimates for the quarter call for Mac sales of $8.2 billion, down 21% from the year earlier quarter. (Note that Apple does not actually report unit sales for Macs or other products.)
Apple declined to comment on the IDC data.
Apple stock is 2.6% lower, at $160.31, in Monday morning trading, while HP stock is 0.8% higher at $29.52, and Dell stock is off 1.8% to $40.94.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]
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