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Quarter one; Mac shipments fell by 20.7% year-over-year — or maybe only 6.2%

Over the weekend, the Canalys research group reported that Mac shipments fell by over 20% to 3.2 million units in the first quarter. A new report by the IDC research group concurs, while one by Gartner is a bit more optimistic.

IDC says the global traditional personal computer market — comprised of desktops, notebooks, and workstations — declined 9.8% year over year in the first quarter of 2020 (1Q20), reaching a total of 53.2 million shipments. The stark decline after a year of growth in 2019 was the result of reduced supply due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, the world’s largest supplier of personal computers, says IDC.

It adds that Mac volumes decline by 20.7% year over year, one of the largest drops in recent history as almost all of its manufacturing is based in China and the company was one of the hardest hit by the shutdown of factories

However, Gartner says that personal computer ships declined 12.3% in the first quarter of 2020 due to the pandemic. Interestingly, this research group says Apple’s shipments only fell 6.2% year-over-year, from 3.79 million in Q1 2019 to 3.55 million in Q1 2020. What’s more, in the U..S., Gartner’s data shows that Mac shipments grew from 1.34 million last year to 1.35 million this year.

Oh well, you know what they say: 99% of all statistics are made up. Also, note that neither Canalys, IDC, nor Gartner count iPad/iPad Pro sales in their tallies.

Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.