Mac sales grow 9% year-over-year — or maybe 6.2%

Apple’s Mac sales grew 9% year-over-year from 2020 to 2021. Or 6.2% depending on which research group you believe.

First, there’s IDC

Worldwide shipments of Traditional PCs (desktops, notebooks, and workstations) reached 92.7 million units during the fourth quarter of 2021 (4Q21), marking 1.0% growth over the same quarter in 2020, according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker.

According to IDC, Apple sold almost 8 million Macs last quarter. That gives the company 8% of the global PC market share (and the research group doesn’t include iPads in it PC tally). That’s 8.6% year-over-year growth.

Apple places fourth among global PC manufactures, trailing Lenovo (23.5% market share), HP (21.2%), and Dell (17%). 

Total PC shipments during 2021 reached 348.8 million units, up 14.8% from 2020. This represents the highest level of shipments the PC market has seen since 2012, according to IDC.

Then there’s Gartner

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 88.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2021, a 5% decrease from the fourth quarter of 2020, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. This is the first year-over-year decline following six consecutive quarters of growth. For the year, PC shipments reached 339.8 million units in 2021, a 9.9% increase from 2020.

According to Gartner, Apple sold almost 7 million Macs last quarter. That gives the company 7.7% of the global PC market share (and this research group also doesn’t include iPads in it PC tally). That’s 6.2% year-over-year growth.

Gartner also places Apple fourth among global PC manufactures, trailing Lenovo (24.5% market share), HP (21.1%), and Dell (19.5%).