Hangover-time for PC makers after the explosion of demand during the pandemic.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
The explosion in demand for consumer electronics, including computers and smartphones, was a big part of the explosion of demand for goods in general during the pandemic, that caused all kinds of things to go haywire, from supply chains to transportation networks, triggering long delays, chaos, shortages, and massive price spikes. But then it settled down with a vengeance, as everyone who’d ever wanted to buy this stuff had bought this stuff, and demand plunged.
And so it went with demand for PCs and laptops, that had been massively boosted by the shift to working-from-home and to learning-from-home in 2020 and in 2021. And now is hangover time.
Global shipments of PCs – includes desktops, laptops, and workstations, but not tablets and servers – plunged by 29% in Q1, after having plunged by 28% year-over-year in Q4, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).
The number of units shipped plunged to 56.9 million in Q1 2023, from 80.2 million units in Q1 2022. Shipments were also well below the pre-pandemic first quarters of 2019 (59.2 million units) and 2018 (60.6 million units).
Though inventory has come down some, it remains high. “Even with heavy discounting, channels and PC makers can expect elevated inventory to persist into the middle of the year and potentially into the third quarter,” IDC said.
Apple’s global shipments of Macs plunged 40.5%, according to IDC, out-plunging with ease the other four of the big PC makers. During a February earnings call, Apple said that Mac revenues – so that’s unit sales times prices – would see a double-digit decline in Q1.
Apple global market share dropped from 8.6% in Q1 2022, to 7.2% in Q1 2023. Data via IDC:
| Company | Q1 shipments, million units | YoY % change | Q1 Market Share |
| 1. Lenovo | 12.7 | -30.3% | 22.4% |
| 2. HP | 12 | -24.2% | 21.1% |
| 3. Dell | 9.5 | -31.0% | 16.7% |
| 4. Apple | 4.1 | -40.5% | 7.2% |
| 5. ASUS | 3.9 | -30.3% | 6.8% |
| Others | 14.7 | -26.0% | 25.9% |
| Total | 56.9 | -29.0% |
Prices of PCs have dropped from the crazy stuff going on in 2020 and 2021. The Consumer Price Index for computers, peripherals, and smart home assistants spiked during the buying binge in 2020 and peaked in September 2021. Then they began to soften. By May 2022, the index fell on a year-over-year basis, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By December 2022, the index had fallen 9.1% from the peak in September 2021.
In January and February, the CPI for computers, peripherals, and smart home assistants ticked up, which left it down 7.4% from the September 2021 peak and down 5.6% from a year ago.
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Can confirm anecdotally. Avoided the shortage and demand mania of 2021 and early 2022, squeezing the remaining life out of old hardware in the meantime, but scored some beautiful deals, upgrading my entire IT infrastructure in Q4 2022. Saved 30%+ by waiting a bit. Wins all around.
Just like NAR (realtors), the pc stock analyst will put a positive spin on this and say that, the reduction in prices will make the market healthier and demand will return and market will end year with growth!
Then stocks of these companies will rally 20% based on this news!
Then result for next quarter will be worse. Then rinse and repeat.
Bitcoin at 30k. Sry perma bears
Only collapsed by 54% now, as opposed to 70%, LOL
Bit coin funds:
“We cut off their legs and they buy new legs!! Bwahahahaha”
Crypto suckers:
Where do I add my life’s savings?
If Fed manages to get its sh!t together, Bitcoin will be worthless.
Today’s J Pow’s words are seen as worthless.
Agree with Leo. Fed balance sheet is less than 5% off its peak.
Bitcoin is irrefutably the biggest bubble in the history of mankind.
$2 to $69,000 in ten years?????
You have to be stupid to buy this. Literally stupid beyond belief.
Talk about missing the boat!
Anyone who buys it now is a total sucker, EVEN IF IT GOES HIGHER. To this day, nobody even knows the real identity of the person who started it. Major Ponzi scheme as far as I’m concerned.
Well Carlos, there is something to say about old, reliable and steady. See some of it can dance circles around the new and unseasoned devices. Example, hackatosh… Apple & Mac.. combined as one device.
As an old man once said, we can invest in a person we can change the exterior. Keeping the old and adding new, wow do we have a mix of talents to work with.
Just like people, we may be rusty but we can share ourselves, our knowledge and our commitment to our public. Maybe we should consider all the above.
Apple products are epitome of discretionary spending.
If Apple is doing good it means consumers are doing good and or have money to spend on expensive Apple products.
The apple stock is flirting close to ATH.
People will push out rent and car payments to get a new Apple product. They moved from discretionary to essential quite some time ago .
The thrill is gone,the money is gone,to much con ,sumerism we don’t need more shit to fill landfills .Plus boomers quit buying,I’m in that group
It was all stock buybacks. Apple was using all cash to buyback stocks. This will end in 2 quarters as its nearly out of cash.
Then stock price of apple will drop like a rock. Before that big investors will rotate out. Only passive investment funds and retail investors will take losses.
I feel that Apple’s fall later this year will be final, because
1. tech is all proprietary.
2. Android has beaten it globally.
3. It sells in US only due to jobs marketing strategy and folks buying on credit
You’re saying that Apple is nearly out of cash? Where do you get that idea? If you look at their reports, they had $51 billion in cash at the end of 2022 Q4. They are a cash generating machine.
Only among hipster doofi.
Android phones are available that provide 80%-90% of the functionality for 2%-5% of the cost.
The article says 40% drop in Mac shipments. It is not talking about phones.
@Joe
K lets bring comments back to mac laptops.
I’m a data scientist and recently bought a new laptop. Looked at mac. Seems nice but no way to increase memory or hard drive, ever. Why??? Not upgrade-able. Really hard to repair. Most expensive option. Can I run multiple operating systems- maybe?
I personally have no need for video processing which supposedly mac excels at.
Bought a 1 year old used bigcorp laptop for $400. Easily upgraded the SD card and memory. Screaming laptop. Fairly easy to configure for scientific work. Have several operating systems installed, can run individually or virtually. Easy to repair, upgrade & backup. Spent about $600 on upgrades. Oh and it’s the exact same dimensions as my family members macbooks.
Compared to buying the macbook I was looking at, this leaves about $1500 free to invest in regional banks, or buy even more upgrades or 3 more spare laptops. OK I get it I’m comparing new to used, just pointing out that if a person is really interested in performance per dollar, lightly used non-apple gear is the way to go. I guess if you want to spend top dollar on a brand new laptop you can do that.
No. Anything Apple does, others can do cheaper. Their only competitive advantage is “coolness”.
Cheap implies Nasty.
Exactly. Apple is not treated as discretionary by many. Though of course it still is.
Superior engineering and UI vs Android. Superior execution of the ecosystem too. There is a reason Warren is heavily invested.
Apple products tend to have a pretty long service life. Compared to competitors they aren’t so expensive that it’s luxury only. Plus they hold their value decently, so people can offset the cost in the upgrade cycle.
Where’s the proof? I’ve had quite a few Dell PCs run strong for over 10 years, and suspect it’s similar for any quality computer.
TonyT,
In an anecdotal case, I’m using the proof right now to read your comment and reply back.
My 13 year-old iMac was the top of Apple’s line when bought. It is now maxed out @ macOS High Sierra 10.13.6. And for Safari, it runs Version 13.1.2.
But, I’d say it’s been a good investment and a good piece of hardware. I run the digital audio out through a Schiit Audio ‘Fulla E’ DAC (made in Texas), and the 27″ display looks very sharp.
Someday, I’ll have to replace it, but it still works great — 13 years later.
“Dell…10 years”
SAME!
Agreed, maybe that was the case for Apple products a decade or so ago but it sure isn’t anymore, part of the reason our household and our neighbors have moved away from Apple recently is the planned obsolescence that’s seemed to go with their soaring prices, even worse for phones and mobile products than the Macs. Apple’s introduced all kinds of sneaky ways to all but force you to upgrade much sooner than you planned to, including “upgrades” in the batteries or camera that aren’t really improvements at all, but force you to buy the latest and not-so-greatest because your otherwise working device doesn’t work so well. Apple’s inflated stock price has depended on this gimmick and American consumers especially, being too dumb or bad with their own money–like Happy Jack saying, even failing to pay their rent, mortgage or car payments–to have financial discipline and stop wasting money on the price premium. We finally put out foot down and refused to allow our daughter to buy the latest iPhone, so she’s switching to Droid, 30 to 40 percent lower costs for the device and all the things with it with better quality and lasts longer. (That’s even for the higher-end brands, something like Nokia, Alcatel or HTC is often half the price of Apple’s with the latest cost surge)
Just like with buying cars, too many Americans lose their senses when it comes to spending on homes, smart-phones and computers, paying way too much for an overpriced brand like Tesla or Apple when there are much cheaper values that also provide better quality and (especially now) last a lot longer. And that profligate attitude and willingness to go deep in debt hurts the rest of us by driving general prices higher. (And then there’s college tuition..) Now Americans have record credit card debt partly because of this, and chickens are coming home to roost.
…ah, ostentation, where is thy sting???
may we all find a better day.
I think you misread Ethan’s comment. He only compared Apple to competitors based on price, not service life.
I don’t buy this, I’ve run Lenovo, Asus and MSI gear 24/7 running simulations fully expecting them to die before I find the hardware too slow and obsolete and to my surprise none of them did. In fact I’m most impressed with Asus, my sister is notorious for electronics destruction, her Asus held up surprisingly well all through Uni, it was like a miracle. Apple just has good marketing to convince people it’s somehow better.
Don’t buy what? Ethan never mentions the quality or longevity of competitors. Nothing Ethan actually said is inconsistent with your experience with Lenovo, Asus and MSI gear.
I’ve been using Asus products since the late 90s when I use to build my own pcs… simply can’t go wrong with Asus, they just last.
You might want to go to a used phone marketplace online and check the iPhone prices 2 to 3 model years back.
“Holding value” is hardly the case. Especially in light of tiny incremental improvements and peripheral hostage taking.
So true, hostage experiments with technology to cripple others. Is that what you stand for Rio and Ethan?
Maybe we should leave the products exactly as per manufacture. People must be scared at what could be accomplished with the older devices. Some of them outshine newer models and are seasoned.
Its a myth propagated by Apple fan Boys.
Apple is not a technological company but worlds best marketing company.
Like Tesla Apple has cult following.
Iphones are good but not that good that it commands $1500.
Same can be said about expensive Samsung phones.
For the fan boys.. Apple came with new revolutionary iPhone las week .. a Yellow IPhone
I have a cheap unlocked android phone, it does virtually everything my relatives $1500 phones does, except it’s not as glitzy. Its on year 3. I paid $120 for it.
Also unlike apple, which won’t let you stick an SD card or 3.5mm jack in your phone, I stick both into this one. I needed more memory so I bought a 400GB sd card for $50 to stick in this phone. When this phone finally dies I just pop it out and stick in the replacement.
Funny, my phone now has 2-3X as much memory as my relatives, who continue to claim their expensive phones are better.
Plus they are less likely to be spammed or hacked, which is why I retreated from Android phones.
Another plus, Apple has super customer service, another unhappy experience with companies behind my Android phones.
To get Apple quality in Android, I found I had to pay closer to 🍎 prices or even more.
Ridiculous to say apple is less likely to get spammed or hacked.
True IF you physically go into a store they MAY give you good service.
Of course they should do something for you when you are literally paying 10X more (see my other comment) and they wont let you upgrade memory.
I should start a car dealership and sell you a dolled up non-upgradeable car for 10X more you will love the deal and so will I.
If I read this 3 months ago, I would’ve called this ridiculous too… But 2 months ago my son bought 3 used iPhones to replace Android phones to everyone but me in our family, and I soon got very surprised – I run pihole – a whole house network-level ad blocker, and the amount of blocked queries plummeted from around 70% when we had only Android phones in our house to less than 40% now.
Android phones seem to generate some outrageous amount of garbage / spyware traffic and Google doesn’t seem to force app developers to respect users’ privacy.
And the funniest thing is that it is coming from a huge Android fan – we never had iPhones before and to say I am shocked is a significant understatement.
Apple phones are just SO much better and thought through than most Android mid-rangers that it’s not even funny. Of course, not at $1000+ price tag – this is insane.
Hey IN, what is an ad?
freewary, according to advertisers, ad (or advertisement, if that was a serious question lol) is the main component of what you see every time you open a website, video or a podcast, which, by itself, is just a vehicle to deliver ads to you.
Wow, son come off the moon.
From an IT standpoint (with the mobile products anyway), Apple just works and is secure.
Google’s stuff is really bad, I mean slow, and insecure.
Yeah Apple is expensive, but get your first phone from them on sale. And buy the unlocked version so you can hop around cell phone carriers, if needed.
Apple secure LoL
What’s that?
You bought a $400 laptop, you obviously know nothing.
$400 laptops are the slowest scam on the market. If you had spent even a little more, your user experience for years would have been much better.
Ah thanks for feedback sufferinsucatash!
FYI based on your comment I just bought a 16″ macbook pro with 96GB RAM, 8TB SSD for $6,998 because I learned from you that spending more is smart!
Obviously putting 96GB RAM and huge SSD in my $400 laptop would be stupid even though I could do it for a lot less.
I am smart now so I should try to get a better job!
I’ve used Android for years. Initially, I would have agreed with you. iOS was much more polished. But that hasn’t been true for a good 5 years or so. Google continued to refine Android and integrate the whole Google experience (e.g. gmail, play store, maps, etc). It now works better than iOS, by a significant margin. I know because my wife has an iphone and she has trouble with even simple things like managing multiple email accounts and calendars.
IMHO, the Android UI is now much more polished than iOS, and even just looks better: higher resolution, brighter displays, nicer looking icons. iOS, to my eye, looks like what Android did about 5 years ago, and its user experience in terms of how it functions is about the same number of years behind google.
What’s more, most of my friends who have the latest iPhone are impressed with the quality of pictures on my Samsung (I have an S21) and tell me they look better than their own phone (they say this spontaneously; I don’t go around engaging in phone wars with people :-).
At this point, the only reason most people stick with an iphone is due to imessaging. iMessaging has more features than regular text messages (Although not more than 3rd party apps like WhatsApp), and even more importantly, no one wants to be the “square” who shows up with the dreaded green bubble on text messages. I’m convinced if Apple hadn’t done that to tar non-Apple users with the green label, they wouldn’t have nearly as much brand loyalty as they currently do.
No it’s not – and I say this as an Apple products consumer.
None of these phone systems are secure.
You folks need to track the news more carefully.
So you “unlock” a “secure” device which of course only makes it more “secure”, right?
That’s funny. I used to be an Apple fanboy Back in the day until i put Linux on one of my macs (back then it was still possible, today Apple Shows you the big middle finger) only to discover that some of the features Apple had marketed for the product were simply turned off (like an fast AGP graphics card that ran in slow PCI mode because otherwise it locked up the whole system due to timing issues). And that hasn’t changed. Last year i had a friend ask me to install Linux on a Macbook but i gave up since the pitfalls and Hacks Apple had put into their EFI to prevent anything but their OS to run on “standard” hardware were just too much. Oh, and good luck trying to run their OS virtualized – they cut that off, too. Seems most of the engineers at Apple are busy locking their users in. The 40% drop is more than deserved. So much for an IT standpoint.
Bullwhip effect will be evident in many categories over the next couple years I believe.
This also makes sense given the massive slowdown in tech hiring. SaaS startups love to send new hires shiny new MacBooks, and now those same startups are laying off 10-20% of their workforce.
This is a great point. Do we now what percentage of macs (and other brands) are due to corporate purchases vs. individuals? At my company we pushed back the computer refreshes by a year so it isn’t just less hiring that is going to reduce corporate spending.
That’s perfectly true. It is absolutely possible that most of the 40% drop comes from that effect since braindead IT managers who had to give their company a “cool” image to attract talent were told all you have to do is give them a MacBook and an iPhone and voilà – you’re cool !
Apple, a very successful sheepherder in a society that throws money around without a lot of logical thought or care. How long can this be sustained, on both counts?
As long as we have suppressed the value of money, this can be sustained!
Apple computers are overpriced and the OS is too micromanaged. I got a great HP Dev One laptop for half the price, and it felt like breaking out of jail – simple, efficient, open source, no subscription and fees jammed down your throat, no more weird file formats and bags of dangling adaptors – so nice.
Fed announces that it will buy back all iPhone models at original MSRP…Fannie Mae to accept all models as full DP on homes…
Best laugh I’ve had in a while. Thanks Cas127.
Yes! Homes that have already had their titles grifted to new owners.
I wonder if $1,400 IPhones are next to drop in demand?
I just grudgingly upgraded to an iphone 14. Couldn’t pass up the deal. $5 bucks a month for 36 months with a $90. trade in. I did get the unpopular big phone not the pro.
Which mandatory cell provider, at what monthly rate?
you bet!
Kick the monopolies in the teeth and use Linux! Warning: brain required!
This has gotta be the stuff that makes J Powell pissed.
Why produce more volume for sale when you can still make your revenue from price increases and meet your quotas?
Securing materials to fabricate and shipping contracts to deliver is a difficult task.
Let’s not forget this is the company that sells 400$ casters for their computers, and 600$ monitor stands for screens that are sold without a stand, both products that don’t require any silicon.
I am a lifelong apple computer fan having purchased my first Mac in 1984, and financed my sons educations with the Apple Stock I purchased for $17.00 per share the day Steve Jobs returned to the company. But in todays world Apple computers are relegated to personal use plus Graphics and animation and such. The industrial world and serious gaming is run on Windows machines despite their flaws ( in my opinion). Last month I had to break down and buy a windows machine to run software to program my new mill which also runs on a windows processor. So to some degree this crash in Mac sales vs other computers is due to the continued robustness of the physical economy and gaming vs the “Arty’ world of the Mac.
You can install Windows on any compatible hardware, including industrial PCs. That’s why industrial machines run Windows, Linux, a RTOS, or a combination. Apple doesn’t want that market.
Plus MS is smart enough to offer LTSC versions.
I’ve tended to fleets of iMacs running Windows via Bootcamp in non-artsy business a few times. It’s usually because the owners / investors like Macs, so they issue an edict to use them as workstations. An intermediate decision maker realizes that their critical software only runs on Windows, so they purchase a bunch of Windows licenses on top of the Apple premium. And good lord those things ran slow even with the correct drivers. What a waste of money.
Dual booting anything is so obsolete.
The odd windows program will run perfectly fine in Parallels or VMWare fusion.
Better than on “bare metal”, because there will be proper and supported drivers for the emulated hardware!
I once was verbally accosted by a Steve Jobs fan outside of a Kinkos. He literally was brainwashed that Jobs was the be all do all.
I still have nightmares of this encounter.
Apple fans are out there man, far out there. Sorta think it’s that tech effect or something. Haha
(Apple’s) Macs are just a “durable consumption good”. Once you buy one then you don’t need to buy one anymore in the next few (4, 5, 6 7, or more) year. it was bound to happen sooner or later.
I own a fair amount of LT puts on AAPL. Obviously, I have been early, but I think the shares are overbought and the stock moves lower. Eventually fundamentals matter. Apples revenues grew a whooping 2.44% in 2022. Net margins were also decreasing, so the stock is up in 2023. My puts expire in Jan 2024.
Apple is like 10% of the S&P right?
That means they are really important to the economy.
That’s a losing bet, I’d think.
You’ll do well.
Apple has never had more than about a 7% share of the so-called personal computer market as they make horrible non-industry standard machines that hardly run any software at all as they don’t have the Windows OS even available to run on their non-standard and very crude junk.
Microsoft and Samsung both ship Windows laptops running ARM chips. ARM is the future. Intel is dead and not even the billion dollar bailout from the government can save them.
Intel spent all their money on stock buybacks and forgo investing in their own technology. The end result is their stock price is the same as it was in 1998.
Itanium was a serious business mistake for Intel too.
You can run a virtual machine on your Mac that runs the Windows operating system. I used to run a Linux Virtual machine on my Windows computers so that I could run Linux.
Check out VMware, or Oracle Virtual Box, or Azure Virtual Machines for the Mac.
Naw, I don’t know about specific newer models, but for many years Apple had a package called Bootcamp that provisioned a new bootable partition on your Mac’s storage for running Windows directly on the Apple hardware, and it slipstreamed in the drivers.
I haven’t dealt with them in a while but Parallels could also run Windows as a VM, fullscreen or windowed.
WinApple – Half the software performance for triple the hardware price.
It is like Apple roofies its loyalists.
Techpocalypse Now!
Perhaps the electronics fanfare has peaked. Who needs more toys and apps? Now, less is more. I bought a laptop from a local computer store a while back that stripped all the junk from Windows I didn’t want running in the background and unnecessary on memory. I Don’t need or want all the new bells and whistles anymore.
Brant – to (once again) reprise the old engineering joke: ‘…if something works really well, it doesn’t have enough ‘features’, yet…’.
may we all find a better day.
With most applications now running on the cloud instead of on your hardware. I’m finding it matters less and less what you have locally. Old hardware can do a lot more than it could ten years ago.
Maybe Mac demand is down because it’s a poor product. I bought two Macs in 7 years (I thought I just got a lemon the first time) and I wasn’t at all happy with the quality or the short life span!
I ran a 2009 MacBook Pro 15″ until it outlasted the security provisions.
Got a 2015 2.8 ghz Quadcore I7 16gb Macbook Pro 15″ Retina for $300 to replace it . With 180 cycle counts on the battery. ( about $2,200 new)
They last forever. Just don’t go beyond 2015 and get the dreaded keyboard.
Amen, my 2 were boat anchors. Kick myself for buying them. Never buy Apple anything ever again.
Countries shut down and locked the sheep in. I doubt anything will make sense for a long time to come. Trillions pumped constantly making charts look pretty silly. Sorry, Wolf, trying to make sense of the insane may drive you crazy too? Long way to go if we, can, ever get back to normal.
Tech layoffs and tech reduced spending now tech financial options are getting more expensive all of which point towards a reduction in spending and subsequent reduction in service spending . So far has not shown in services data but the FRB is doing a great job of late but history (pivot ) better not repeat .
1) The king have no clothes. Saturation. AAPL apes & watch for fun.
2) SPX : there is a downtrend line from Jan 2022 to Feb 2023 highs. It was breached today.
3) SPX : EMA20 > dma50 > dma200. dma200 is bending up. This year and a half bs is over. Soft lending. SVB RIP. No recession.
4) DOW : there is a downtrend line coming from Jan 2022 to Dec 13 2022
highs. This line was not reached.
5) NQ monthly, a trigger, mass shooting, NQ took cover under Aug 2022 high.
Well, I’ve been writing hardcore physics code for almost 40 years and, like virtually all of my peers, I despise microshaft. Virtually all of us strongly prefer either a Linux box or an apple. At least apples have a legitimate OS. Everybody jokes about microshaft. It’s not that we adore apple or whatever else is out there… rather, we are absolutely amazed by how bad things are on MS machines.
SocalJohn,
“Physics code for almost 40 years?” Since I got my bachelor’s in physics 38 years ago, I am quite curious as to what that entails.
SourceForge?
BulletPhysics SDK?
Opensource.com?
One aspect of Formula One that is catching the Mercedes team off-guard is that their computational dynamics modelling doesn’t correlate as well as expected with real word results. They signed a deal with AMD in 2020 to use the EPYC processors for their work.
On the other hand, Red Bull has Adrian Newey draw up designs with pencil and paper before they are digitized and fed to computation analysis. Red Bull has won all three races that have been run this year.
Thanks for the comment, and all the best to you SocalJohn.
DanRo – …why the roads to true advancement seem to be paved with the souls of many test pilots…
may we all find a better day.
Not so coincidentally the MacOS core is Darwin, a Unix type OS with a BSD lineage. When I had to use Unix style services for computer science academic studies, all I had to do was open up a terminal window and go.
I used Windows machines at work and never liked them much. When doing multiplatform development in the latter 1990’s, used Windows and Linux on identical on maxed out Intel 486 boxes. The Linux boxes easily supported 30 terminal users (no kidding), while apps ran faster due to 10x faster file I/O vs Windows NT with a Unix command line interface supporting maybe 10 users.
But then, my first three computers were Commodore Amiga’s, which I loved, the expandability of IBM PC with a true multitasking OS similar to but better than Apple. I still miss them. Switching to Mac was a no-brainer.
But Apple’s obsolescence strategy may have me switching to something like Ubuntu eventually.
Can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to see someone saying this
On the rare occasion I have to boot my dual boot laptop into Windows, it’s just an exasperating experience. Everything is so slow and…bad. So so bad.
Engineering professional, wont have Windows in the house. Apple for photo organizer and general documents / email / web stuff for wife and kids, LINUX ZFS for fileserver. Love the Apple desktop human factors, but not so keen on certain aspects — they should put some of their cash to use improving macos reliability. My LINUX box just runs and runs…
The demand for lots of electronics were pulled forward by free pandemic money. Now the hangover begins in earnest as wealth disappears and monthly debt payments resume.
As someone who uses Windows extensively at work but uses a
MacBook at home, there is no comparison. Apple makes a better
physical product and the OS is more robust. Corporate buyers
stick with what they always have because there is no reward for
change.
My guess is that there was a huge bump in Mac sales when the M1 Macs came out. The M1 was a huge improvement in performance and battery life vs. the Intel Macs.
The M2 is a considerably smaller improvement, so there’s no big push to replace M1 Macs right now.
To put things in perspective…
Apple just had the worst quarter for PC shipments since the the end of year 2000 (a time when Steve Jobs had only been back a few years with the release of Apple Cube, and also since the dot.com bust).
I build my own computers and don’t pay the middle man. Ryzen 5700G was about $500 a couple of years ago, and I bought it for $239 a couple of months ago. Built a wonderful computer with case, RAM, motherboard, and everything in between for $600 in parts that are on firesafe. Samsung is massively cutting back on RAM production which should tell you a lot.
I agree with Zoltan Poszar: Western economies will not be able to print their way out of this one, or they will face currency collapse. US especially can’t with the BRICS ditching the dollar (40% of the world population). Soon to become BRIICSS (when Iran and Saudi join officially (which they already have joined in some limited capacity).
Those praying for a Fed pivot and return to ZIRP should lose everything, and will deserve to lose everything.
Also read this: Dollar Dumped: How the first China-UAE gas deal in yuan is a big blow to US
Dear John
Those praying for a Fed pivot and return to ZIRP should lose everything, and will deserve to lose everything.
I lost my mind watching this nonsense over the last 15 years. I hope they all lose their minds along with everything else.
Here’s my data point: in 2018 I bought an RX 580 for $190. During the frenzy of late 2021 it was over $600. I just checked and it is now $120, but the boards all seem to be Chinese brands that I’ve never seen before.
I get this actually. I’m super cheap so I bought my IPhone whatever number from the dude’s that resell them for 1/5 the price. I rock an IPad whatever that work bought. Not an Apple lover or hater. Do get irritated at them sometimes, yet Dell desktop running MS stuff isn’t great but is a 2016 and still kicking on the work network.
I think people loaded up during pandemic and are just coasting on what they got just like the report stated. Not really surprising.
China is roaring in Taiwan Strait, because Lenovo, HP, Dell, AAPl, ASUS
and others are down 30%/40%.
OMG call off QT! APPLE can’t find a home for its stray cats.
WGAS?
Maybe the Apple sales are down because people figured out the Apple planned obsolescence strategy in addition to the closed environment. I had 2 Apple PCs both of which became unusable because Apple stopped maintaining the OS and the hardware would not support an OS upgrade.
My Toshiba laptop on the other hand I upgraded Windows 8 to 10 to get 2 more years of use. It’s been cranking for 9 years now.
But it’s all commodity stuff now. My serious work was on UNIX (long ago). Now whatever runs with the least hassle.
Yeah, they arent making any friends with that strategy. You can get 8-10 years out of a cheap laptop running ubuntu.
Wow! My 2009 MacBook ran with upgrades – and past them – until 2020.
Was gifted an iPad Pro (😊) to replace it and am grateful. Am not a herdling, don’t like 🍎 business practices, but design, ease of use, and support still make it a better choice for
Non-techie. Love the term “Microshaft”
We used the term “Microslop”.
We switched from Windoze about 10 years ago. I got tired of the crashing software and the thing locking up at the most inopportune moment. Spousal unit is a techno-demolition expert and hasn’t yet fried her Apoo products… she’s done some amazing things to them, but they can usually be put back together without starting out at “Format C”.
Ha ha! Love that microslop and microshaft! Y’all have fun playin with your overpriced crapple…..
Something adding to the decline in computer demand may be the hiring freezes and layoffs at the large tech companies over the last six months. How many returned computers are they sitting on that they can reuse, reducing future purchases? That will extend the low sales numbers.
I’m not sure what to make of this…I hope smart people are not thinking less. Both hardware and software last longer these days which is a good thing I suppose.
Am pretty deft at IT.
Building a gaming computer was ridiculously expensive during the pandemic. NVIDIA had some sort of bottle necking going on to drive up their Graphics card prices. It was so insane!
Retail stores doubled the retail prices on these cards and coders made programs to alert you when a store near you had even 1 or 2.
NVIDIA, you are evil. lol
That “some sort of bottle necking” was demand from crypto miners during the most insane phase of that bubble. Driven, of course, by cheap and easy money, thanks to a certain central bank I won’t name.
Stuck using PC’s of every brand and Microsoft software because many business programs didn’t run on IOS, many businesses hired IT people and subscribed to IT services to fight the constant barrage of virus’s and mysteries that would interrupt their businesses.
Out of frustration, many a business and many an individual switched to Apple 100%, never to pay for IT again. Absolutely everything runs off a lightweight Macbook Air and whatever cloud you want. Customer service over the phone is terrific, and in the worst case there’s a store you can just walk into with your laptop.
I don’t see that anything’s changed over the years. For 2 years, executives transitioned to work from home, buying new Apple products because they needed the best. Sure, that rush ended and shipments have come back down, but Apple now has big bump up of companies and individuals tied to its ecosystem.
For apple to come to earth, we do not even need a recession. It is already there but no one seems to or wants to notice it. Apple Price/Sales is north of 7 and is way too much. Don’t get me wrong, I love Apple products but the stock has gotten way ahead of itself. Here are the growth numbers for Apple over the last 2 years. Look how it has steadily declined across all product lines. I wish I could have posted an image, but wolfstreet does not allow it.
In a nutshell Apple had a 54 % growth from already a strong user base due the stimulus handed out. There is no way they can grow at the current rate without increasing the prices or by introducing new products. These are the growth rate quarter by quarter for the last 2 years if the chart below is difficult to read
(55, 36, 29, 11, 9, 2, 8, -5)
Apple—-Mar-21—-Jun-21—–Sep-21—–Dec-21——Mar-22—–Jun-22—–Sep-22—–Dec-22
==========================================================================================================
Total—-89.6(54)—81.4(36)—83.4(29)–123.9(11)—97.3(9)—-83.0(2)—-90.1(8)—-117.2(-5)
iPhone—47.9(66)—39.6(50)—38.9(47)—71.6(9)—-50.6(5)—-40.7(3)—-42.6(10)—-65.8(-8)
iMac——9.1(70)—-7.4(12)—-9.2——-10.9(25)—10.4(15)—-7.4(0)—-11.5(25)—–7.7(-29)
iPad——7.8(79)—-8.2(16)—-8.3(21)—-7.2(14)—-7.6(2)—–7.2(2)—–7.2(13)—–9.4(30)
Watch—–7.8(25)—-8.8(36)—-8.8——-14.7(13)—-8.8(12)—-8.1(8)—–9.7(10)—-13.5(-8)
Serv.—-16.9(27)—17.5(33)—18.3(26)—19.5(24)—19.8(17)—19.6(12)—19.2(5)—–20.8(6)
Wow, such numbers. Hard to digest and seeing how India created and edited most pictures and YouTube’s, it is so sad you can’t post them.
Maybe it is time to forget greed and maybe it is time to help those in need. Who are we to judge the numbers. Maybe it is time to reverse what was shown for one sided truth about introductions, hard workers, and people who take a stand.
Are we to be proud of destruction? We are much better than that. Apple should help recovery and being a China based firm, they stand and fight for honesty. Maybe Apple should refocus on customer support, helping those in need financially to fully recover.
We should be more compassionate and take clear stands.
If a stock like Deere can drop $40 in two days, it could certainly happen to one of the mega cap tech stocks that are back in bubble land.
Nvidia is a friggin joke.
I predicted a few months ago that the QQQ was nowhere near its eventual bottom, and I am standing firm. The S&P will fall below 3200 too, but probably not this year.
It’s all business. Apple products through the years with much money spent on promotion price her products much above others. Strategy works for a little while and then economic factors sail in with the job losses. Of course the Bloomberg news and the country politicians must always say good news..
and let companies bear the brunt. Just today. Apple big news…open first shop in India n more soon. But months ago….apple much published . moving manufacturing to India…yeah spending more money? Wait you have to clear your inventory first. But luxury products like Apples can citizen there afford? Tesla faces quite similar issue….N they cut prices twice. Just a week ago reported luxury watch items sales fell by over 30 pcent. More unique ly in my country homes condos in snail pace. Authorities says it was because ofack of supply. The tone changes later when 3 expensive bungalow s were sold to foreigners.N quickly news came that there were many Chinese millionaire s moving here…with huge bank accounts deposits. A bank reportedly…..that the financial authorities forbid them from reporting such news…These idiocy behavior causes speculating n rentals both commercial n domestic suddenly spike. Indians are not so dumb as to purchase over priced IT products. N Chinese whether their bank accounts are bloated or not do not buy overprice properties just like that. They have better experience in their own country
Ha…..today news. Tesla neft income n earnings drop more than 20 pc from last year. Start a factory in Timbuktu? Apple to Apple
Tesla is cutting prices and kicking butt. It still has the fattest gross profit margins of any major automaker. It can afford to cut prices. Its price cuts are wreaking havoc in the auto industry. And that’s a great thing.
Vehicle sales up a bunch year-over-year.
Stock still overpriced by a bunch.