The PC shipping estimates for the fourth quarter of 2016 are in from Gartner and IDC, and both sets of numbers show shipments of Apple’s Mac lineup of computers holding steady, despite a continued slowing of shipments in the overall PC market.
Gartner reports Apple shipped an estimated 5.4 million Macs worldwide in Q4 2016, up from 5.3 for the same period a year ago, for an estimated growth of 2.4%. Apple held 7.5% of the market in the fourth quarter, up from 7% a year before. That was good for a number five ranking among PC vendors.
The top three vendors — Lenovo, HP, and Dell — all saw growth during the quarter as well. Number 1 Lenovo saw 1.6% growth, taking 21.7% of the market. HP saw a 4.3% increase, taking 20.4% of the pie, and #3 Dell saw 5.4% growth, good for 14.8% market share.
Asus took the number four spot, with 7.5% of PC shipments in the fourth quarter, despite a -8.5% showing in Q4 shipments. Number 6 vendor Acer also saw a 4.4% decline in growth.
In total, worldwide PC shipments for the fourth quarter of 2016 totaled 72.6 million units, down 3.5% from the fourth quarter of 2015. PC shipments for the full year totaled 269.7 million, down 6.2% from 2015.
Gartner estimates Apple shipped 18.6 million Macs worldwide in 2016, down from 20.3 million the previous year. Meanwhile, the Mac shipments in the U.S. market showed slightly improved numbers for the Mac, with an estimated 2.1 million Macs shipped in Q4 2016, up from 2 million in 2015. Those numbers were good for a fourth place ranking in the U.S.
HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer rounded out the top five, all showing growth, with 4.9 million, 4.1 million, 2.2 million and 662,000 PC shipped, respectively. Meanwhile, number 6 Asus shipped 621,000 units, a 48.3% drop from the same quarter a year before.
Overall, 2016 PC shipments in the United States declined 1.3% compared to 2015, with a total of 16.5 million units shipped.
IDC also released its shipment estimates for Q4 2016 and as usual, their numbers didn’t quite jibe with Gartner’s, due to the differing ways the two firms count shipments of Windows-based tablets.
IDC tabulated worldwide PC shipments totaling 70.2 million units during 4Q 2016. The firm says Apple shipped an estimated 5.26 million Macs in the quarter, down from 5.3 million in Q4 2015 for -0.9% growth and a 7.4% piece of the market pie, up from 7.3% in 2015.
Apple released its new 2016 MacBook Pro models in the fourth quarter of 2016, and it isn’t currently known what role the new laptop played in allowing Apple to basically hold steady in the fourth quarter of the year. The Cupertino firm will release an earnings report on January 31, so we’ll get a better idea of how the new notebooks performed at that time.
