According to the latest report by TrendForce, the global notebook shipments for the third quarter of 2018 are estimated to increase slightly by 3.9% quarter-over-quarter, reaching 42.68 million units. However, Apple’s Mac laptop line declined by 24.3%, according to the research group.
“Apple this year adopted a new processor in its high-end MacBook Pro with OLED Bar, but the performance improvements hardly attract more customers due to the series’ high price tags,” according to TrendForce. “Moreover, the launch of new MacBook Air was delayed to quarter four, and Apple’ third quarter shipments turned out to fall by 24.3% year-over-year as the result.”
Will the 2018 Air turn things around? We won’t know until next quarter.
In terms of the shipment ranking, HP stays in the lead in quarter three of 2018, with 10.8 million units shipped. For the whole year of 2018, the shipment is expected to rise 5% year-over-year to arrive at around 42 million units, better than the average shipment level in the industry, according to TrendForce.
Lenovo remains the second largest notebook manufacturer in the third quarter, shipping 8.44 million notebooks (excluding shipments from brands that Lenovo acquired). The shipments dropped 1.6% year-over-year due to the slowdown in the Chinese domestic market, notes TrendForce.
Dell ranked the third with shipments of 7.18 million units, an increase of 8% year-over-year. Due to rising commercial notebook sales, Dell’s shipments for the whole year are projected to increase by over 12% year-over-year, the highest among the top six notebook makers. The company’s annual shipments are expected to reach 28 million units.
Asus, ranking the fourth, shipped 3.58 million units. Apple placed fifth, although TrendForce didn’t list its sales figures (at least the figures estimated by the research group), simply noting that Apple has 7.9% of the global laptop market compared to 10.4% in the year-ago quarter.
