Apple Soars to Third Place in U.S. PC Market With 10.7% Share

Research firms Gartner and IDC today released their preliminary quarterly personal computer shipment data, offering up a picture of market performance during the second quarter of 2011. Overall, the PC industry exhibited small growth on a worldwide scale, with unit shipments growing by about 2.5% between the second quarters of 2010 and 2011. But shipments in the U.S. actually declined year-over-year by about 4-6% according to the two firms. Gartner in particular points to the iPad as having had a detrimental effect on PC shipments for the quarter.

"Given the hype around media tablets such as the iPad, retailers were very conservative in placing orders for PCs. Instead, they wanted to secure space for media tablets. Some PC vendors had to lower their inventory through promotions, while others slimmed their product lines at retailers," [Gartner analyst Mikako] Kitagawa said.

According to Gartner's report, Apple surged into third place in the U.S. market, up from fifth place a year ago and even as recently as last quarter, grabbing a 10.7% share, up significantly from an 8.5% share in the prior-year quarter.

Apple's U.S. Market Share Trend: 1Q06-2Q11 (Gartner)

Apple's U.S. unit growth for the quarter was 8.5% year-over-year according to Gartner, well ahead of the overall U.S. industry trend of a 5.6% decline. Only Toshiba at 3.3% joined Apple among the Top 5 manufacturers increasing their shipments year-over-year.

Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q11 (Thousands of Units)

IDC's report offers a similarly rosy picture for Apple, pegging its year-over-year unit growth in the U.S. at an even more substantial 14.7% while Toshiba at 3.7% was again seen as the only other member of the U.S. Top 5 to see year-over-year growth. Combined with Acer's sales plunging by over 25%, Apple's growth puts it in third place behind market leaders HP and Dell according to IDC's data, matching the 10.7% share seen by Gartner. Overall, IDC pegs the PC industry as having shrunk by 4.2% year-over-year.

As usual, neither Gartner nor IDC covered Apple's worldwide performance for the quarter, as the company does not rank in the top five by global shipments. But given that the worldwide market experienced only about 2.5% year-over-year growth, Apple appears to be continuing to make up ground on the rest of the industry.

Top Rated Comments
NAG Avatar
122 months ago

Most converts run Windows on their new Macs anyways. This chart shows market share of units (i.e. computers) not OS installations.


Evidence to back this up?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bpaluzzi Avatar
122 months ago

Most converts run Windows on their new Macs anyways. This chart shows market share of units (i.e. computers) not OS installations.


Look, if you're going to blatantly make up stuff, at least make it interesting:

"Most converts only use their Airs as door stops"

"Most converts only use their Pros as boat anchors for the family yacht"

etc...
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
NAG Avatar
122 months ago

Me and all my friends who have macs (about 10 or so).

Thanks for proving my point that you have no evidence. Sorry that you made the unfortunate decision to buy Apple hardware to use as a Windows gaming machine. Kind of a waste of money there. Your post really only proves info about you and not the market at large.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
res1233 Avatar
122 months ago
It just keeps going up! The future sure looks interesting. I wonder what Microsoft would do if Mac OS's market share was ever on par with Windows? It looks like a real possibility in the future if this growth continues.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tech198 Avatar
122 months ago
Market share ain't fair

I have a personal quibble with Apple's market share.

PC users may have a bigger market share as global, where as Apple does market share from a U.S only standpoint, (which you might as well say), unless you live in the U.S, the market share won't concern you.

As a non-U.S resident, i do believe it but only for U.S, but to me, here in Australia, doesnn"t mean squat.. We all know there are more PC's out there. It seems Apple like to have like their own "mini" market share centralized to only local.

I bet you the market share outside U.S would be allot smaller
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
drewisanapple Avatar
122 months ago
10.7 share, lets celebrate with 10.7 aka Mac OS X Lion. ;)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Top Stories

macOS Big Sur Update Bricking Some Older MacBook Pro Models

Sunday November 15, 2020 5:33 am PST by
A large number of late 2013 and mid 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro owners are reporting that the macOS Big Sur update is bricking their machines. A MacRumors forum thread contains a significant number of users reporting the issue, and similar problems are being reported across Reddit and the Apple Support Communities, suggesting the problem is widespread. Users are reporting that during the...

Apple Silicon M1 Emulating x86 is Still Faster Than Every Other Mac in Single Core Benchmark

Sunday November 15, 2020 2:30 pm PST by
The first native benchmarks of Apple's M1 chip appeared on the Geekbench site last week showing impressive native performance. Today, new benchmarks have begun showing up for the M1 chip emulating x86 under Rosetta 2. Single Core Mac benchmarks The new Rosetta 2 Geekbench results uploaded show that the M1 chip running on a MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM has single-core and multi-core scores of ...

Reliable Leaker Says Apple Plans to Introduce 'Christmas Surprise'

Saturday November 14, 2020 5:07 pm PST by
Apple is planning to introduce a "Christmas surprise" next month, according to reliable leaker L0vetodream. In a usual enigmatic tweet, L0vetodream says that Apple's "surprise" will be "good for winter." It remains to be seen at the current time as to what the tweet may be referring to. You'll get a Christmas surprise from Apple(PS:Winter exclusive、good for winter)— 有没有搞措 (@L0vetodream) N ...

iPhone 12 and 12 Pro Users Complain of Missing SMS Text Messages and Message Notifications

Friday November 13, 2020 12:55 pm PST by
Since the release of the new iPhone 12 models, many new iPhone owners have been running into problems with the Messages app. There are complaints from users who aren't seeing SMS messages from friends, are missing text messages in group chats, and who aren't getting notifications when text messages are incoming. It's not clear if this is a problem that's related specifically to the iPhone 12 ...

Apple Begins Issuing Monthly Credits to Apple TV+ Subscribers Through January

Saturday November 14, 2020 7:50 pm PST by
Apple TV+ subscribers who have paid for an annual or monthly plan have begun receiving emails from Apple letting them know that they'll be credited $4.99 for each month subscribed through January 2021. The amount varies based on Apple TV+ pricing in other countries, including $5.99 per month in Canada and $7.99 per month in Australia. The credit will be applied to a subscriber's Apple ID and ...

First Impressions From New iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max Owners

Friday November 13, 2020 11:25 am PST by
It's Friday, November 13, which is the official launch date for the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max. iPhone orders are arriving to customers, and Apple has begun selling the new devices in retail stores. Image via MacRumors reader Azing We've seen multiple reviews of the two new iPhones from media sites, but now regular customers have the smallest and largest iPhones in hand and are...

M1 Chip Beats GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and Radeon RX 560 for Graphics Performance

Monday November 16, 2020 5:47 am PST by
Apple's M1 processor often surpasses the graphics performance of desktop GPUs, including the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and AMD Radeon RX 560, according to a new benchmark submission spotted by Tom's Hardware. According to Apple, the M1's octa-core GPU can simultaneously handle close to 25,000 threads and deliver up to 2.6 TFLOPS of throughput. This is the same TFLOPS achieved by the...

iPhone 12 Mini Users Report Lock Screen Touch Sensitivity Issues

Saturday November 14, 2020 9:00 am PST by
A significant number of new iPhone 12 mini owners are reporting Lock Screen sensitivity issues since receiving their phones. The MacRumors forum has a post running several pages describing the issue, and the thread has been shared on Reddit, where more users are reporting similar problems. Specifically, the problem manifests for most users when swiping up from the bottom of the Lock Screen...

Apple Silicon M1 Chip in MacBook Air Outperforms High-End 16-Inch MacBook Pro

Wednesday November 11, 2020 4:43 pm PST by
Apple introduced the first MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini with M1 Apple Silicon chips yesterday, and as of today, the first benchmark of the new chip appears to be showing up on the Geekbench site. The M1 chip, which belongs to a MacBook Air with 8GB RAM, features a single-core score of 1687 and a multi-core score of 7433. According to the benchmark, the M1 has a 3.2GHz base...

Hands-On With the New iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Mini

Friday November 13, 2020 2:53 pm PST by
Happy iPhone launch day part deux! Today is the official release day for the iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 mini, which join the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 that were released last month. We picked up the new iPhone 12 mini and Pro Max for an unboxing, hands-on, and quick video comparison. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. At 5.4-inches, the iPhone 12 mini is the...