Research firm Gartner today released its preliminary personal computer shipment data for the fourth quarter of 2011, offering up a picture of market performance during the quarter. With year-over-year unit growth of over 20%, Apple was the only one of the top five U.S. vendors to see an increase in shipments in an overall market that shrank by nearly 6%.
Apple's U.S. Market Share Trend: 1Q06-4Q11 (Gartner)
Apple's share dipped from 12.9% in the third quarter, which is routinely the company's strongest quarter due to a heavy presence in education. But the performance marks a distinct improvement over Apple's 9.0% share in the year-ago quarter and continues a long-term trend of increasing market share.
Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q11 (Thousands of Units)
As usual, Gartner did not cover Apple's worldwide market share for the quarter, as the company does not rank among the top five vendors on a worldwide basis. PC shipments shrank 1.4% year-over-year on a worldwide basis, with strong growth from Lenovo and Asus being offset by declines from HP and Acer.
Update: IDC has also released its numbers for the fourth quarter of 2011, yielding results similar to Gartner's. As is typical, IDC pegged Apple's market share slightly lower than in Gartner's data, with IDC showing Apple with 10.92% of the U.S. market on 18% year-over-year growth.
IDC also released numbers for full-year 2011, showing Apple in third place in the U.S. market at 10.73%, up from 8.83% in 2010. Apple's full-year growth of 16.41% easily outpaced the other top-five manufacturers in an overall U.S. market that declined by nearly 5% from 2010.
Monday November 17, 2025 3:20 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers with the third beta of an upcoming iOS 26.2 update, and there are still new features that are being added with each beta that we get. We've rounded up all of the changes that Apple made in beta 3.
AirDrop
Apple added new AirDrop functionality, providing a way for two people to share files temporarily without having to add one another as contacts.
iOS 26.2...
Saturday November 15, 2025 2:40 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple is preparing for Tim Cook to step down as CEO of the company "as soon as next year," according to the Financial Times.
The company's board of directors and senior executives "recently intensified preparations for Cook to hand over the reins," the report said.
While the report said that Apple is unlikely to name a new CEO before its next earnings report in late January, it went on to ...
Apple today announced an expansion of AppleCare+ coverage in India, with new options for monthly and annual plans, and the addition of Theft and Loss for iPhone for the first time.
Options for monthly and annual AppleCare+ plans in India provide more choice and flexibility, allowing users to keep coverage for as long as they require. Apple's vice president of Worldwide iPhone Product...
Thursday November 13, 2025 11:35 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3, the AirPods 4, and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 firmware is 8B21, all up from the prior 8A358 firmware released in October.
There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods 4 with ANC, and AirPods Pro 3...
We're officially in the month of Black Friday, which will take place on Friday, November 28 in 2025. As always, this will be the best time of the year to shop for great deals, including popular Apple products like AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, and more. In this article, the majority of the discounts will be found on Amazon.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When ...
Tuesday November 18, 2025 8:47 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, providing a convenient and contactless way to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps.
Starting this Wednesday, November 19, the feature will be available to residents of Illinois.
The announcement confirmed that the...
Friday November 14, 2025 6:20 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple recently teamed up with Japanese fashion brand ISSEY MIYAKE to create the iPhone Pocket, a limited-edition knitted accessory designed to carry an iPhone.
iPhone Pocket is available to order on Apple's online store starting today, in the United States, France, China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. However, it is already completely sold out in the United...
Friday November 14, 2025 3:23 pm PST by Juli Clover
Most of Apple's Macs are slated to get M5 chips across 2026, and there's a possibility we'll even see the first M6 chips toward the end of the year. Updates are planned for everything from the MacBook Air to the Mac Studio.
MacBook Air (Early 2026)
The MacBook Air will be one of the first Macs to get a 2026 refresh, with an update planned for the first few months of the year. The MacBook...
Sunday November 16, 2025 6:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reiterated that Tesla plans to add Apple CarPlay support to its vehicles "in the coming months."
This is easily the biggest news for the regular version of CarPlay in years, should Tesla actually follow through with offering the system in its vehicles.
As noted by Gurman, this would be a stunning reversal for Tesla and its CEO Elon ...
With year-over-year unit growth of over 20%, Apple was the only one of the top five U.S. vendors to see an increase in shipments in an overall market that shrank by nearly 6%.
I guess that helps explain why CES 2012 looks an awful lot like MacWorld 2008........
The price of the Macbook pro is beyond a joke now.
having owned 2 15" pros im seriously thinking of moving away as upgrading is way to expensive.
When a laptop costs over £2000 with a half assed GPU inside and upgrades which have to be bought with blood diamonds your market share is going to drop.
Time apple started charging average prices for average spec laptops or actually spec them up to what they are trying to charge.
Goes to show that some people only see what supports their own opinion. :)
Apple is the only one of the top 5 vendors to NOT be going backwards year over year.
Just because it has a black border around the screen and black keys doesn't make it an exact copy...
Edit: Wow at all the people who disliked this post and think Apple was the first with that design...
Honestly, because they try to make it as close as possible with out getting slammed with some lawsuit.
I will say this again and again, every company copies ideas from one another. Humans do it do other humans and it's pretty clear that's the way things have been and the way things are.
Apple has stolen ideas (Android notifications for one) and I do acknowledge that. But I don't believe they do it as much or as direct (physical designs) as companies are doing it to Apple today.
Companies usually try to mimic Apple's design (both software and hardware) but often just usually make a worse product. When apple does steal an idea (usually never design) they tend to polish and perfect the idea that the original company "never" could have done.
Is Apple the only company that innovates or comes up with original ideas that consumers like? Of course not! However, there is trend gaining momentum that seems to be the moto, "let Apple do most of the innovation and we'll pick off that."
Begin the downranking or bashing of this fanboy, which I'm not, but it is so blaten these days, I can't believe people try to even deny it.
The impressive part is the growth (or decline) column. It is humorous, all the buzz going to the "ultra-portable" laptops this year, as if it were something new.
While the ultra-portables want to kick Apple's MBA to the curb (kerb, in some other English-speaking countries), the analysts think they will only make about a 10% inroad, combined. Why, you might ask? They will cost as much as the MBA or up to 40% more. Some will be thinner than the MBA, but since that's the standard, you also can't charge more. If Apple refreshes the MBA early in this year, as expected, they could blow the wannabes out of the water with something like a retina display, or adding Siri, or some other compelling "next big thing." ...OR a combination of those things.
I'm tickled to see that it's still Apple's ball game and the wannabes are still in a catch-up mode.
