Yesterday the Gartner research group released its latest findings on global computer sales; today IDC released theirs. The reports are similar, though not identical, yet both show continued growth for the Mac.
Preliminary results for the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18) showed shipments of traditional PCs (desktop, notebook, and workstation) totaled 62.3 million units, recording solid year-on-year growth of 2.7%. The results exceeded IDC’s forecast of 0.3% growth and marks the strongest year-on-year growth rate in more than six years, when the first quarter of 2012 posted growth of 4.2%.
Globally, per IDC, the Mac has 6.9% market share as of the second quarter of 2018, compared to 7.1% in the second quarter of 2017. Though the percentage is down, sales are up slightly 0.1% year-over-year with Apple selling approximately 4.3 Macs in quarter two of 2018.
Worldwide, IDC says HP is in first place with 23.9% market share, followed by Lenovo (22.1%), Dell (18.1%), Apple, and Acer (6.7%). Unlike Gartner, IDC didn’t offer U.S. only results. However, according to Gartner, the Mac has 12.7% market share as of the second quarter of 2018.
Both research groups don’t include iPads in their data. If they did, Apple would place first in both global and U.S. personal computer market share. Macs have gained global market share for 38 out of the last 40 quarters.
