Is the sky really falling? For Mac, there’s a silver lining.

What's behind those alarmist headlines?

I've seen them, too. Headlines bellowing: "PC shipments drop by 28%," or: "PC Shipments Drop Sharply," or the extremely intense: "Global PC shipments collapsed 28% in Q4."

Yes, PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2022 declined 28% year-over-year. That is a brutal drop — the largest I’ve seen. Some might say this is yet another indicator that the sky is falling.

But, is it?

Encouraging news for Apple

The news wasn’t surprising to me. I await the Gartner and IDC numbers every quarter. And of course, the headline in the report was the decline in shipments — not just for Q4, but all of 2022 (which was down 17%).

However, behind the headline was some of the most encouraging news we’ve ever seen for Apple Mac.

Let’s start with the fact that, in Q4, while the Windows PC market was down approximately 30% year-over-year, Mac units only declined 2%. And for all of 2022, Mac actually grew by 2% while the Windows PC industry declined 18%.

That still doesn’t tell the whole PC vs. Apple story.

Let’s flash back to 2019. In that year, IDC reported that Apple Mac represented a 6.6% share of all “PCs” shipped. Then, in early 2020 the pandemic hit. Working from home accelerated the consumerization of IT— which drives Apple at work.

In late 2020, Apple launched the Mac with M1, bringing the price-performance ratio for Mac on par with or ahead of its Windows counterparts. By the end of 2020, Mac units grew twice as fast as the Windows PC industry.

In 2021, Mac continued to significantly outpace Windows growth. Now, with 2022 in our rear-view window, we see that over the past three years, the Windows PC market has grown a total of only 6% while Mac has grown 60%.

Furthermore, in 2022, the Mac has finally reached a double-digit market share, accounting for 10.8% of all PC shipments worldwide. In the US, the share gain is even more pronounced. According to Gartner, Mac accounted for over 17% of US PC shipments in Q4.

With Apple’s continued innovation (see the recent Mac lineup featuring M2), and ‘work anywhere’ here to stay, I expect a huge Mac boom on the other side of our global economic slowdown.

And that’s good for the market, the next generation of workers and for Jamf Nation.