Worldwide Mac and PC Sales Fall, Looming MacBook Updates Could Turn the Tide in Apple’s Favor

According to statistics gathered by one of the most prominent market research and analysis firms around, the worldwide PC shipment data for the 3rd fiscal quarter (Q3) of 2016 is trending downward over the third fiscal quarter ending exactly one year ago.

Including Apple, statistics collected and corroborated by Gartner also factor in the estimated shipments from other leading PC manufacturers — such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS, and others — with Apple, in both domestic and international reports, rounding out the top 5 industry leaders for Q3 of both 2015 and 2016, which concludes on the 30th of September each year.

According to Gartner, it’s estimated that Apple shipped a whopping 4.95 million Mac computers in Q3 2016 — down slightly from 5.71 million units allegedly shipped in Q3 of last year. That’s a drop in international Mac sales of [minus] 13.4%, year-over-year.

PC sales, on the other hand, appear to be doing slightly better than Apple. For Q3 of 2016, Gartner estimates that the top five firms — Lenovo, HP, Dell, ASUS, and Apple, in that order — shipped a combined 48.9 million units, worldwide. While here in the U.S., where HP, Dell, and Lenovo have the upper-hand on Cupertino, combined shipments for Q3 2016 were estimated to be at around 13 million units — with Apple, itself, shipping a paltry 2 million or so of those machines.

All things considered, PC and Mac sales have been falling for a while now — primarily in light of increased competition, pricing wars, an obvious shift from personal computing towards more portable, tablet and smartphone offerings, and, at least for the Cupertino-company, a lack of any major hardware upgrades sufficient enough to gouge a major public interest.

As a matter of fact, the only Apple computer to have been updated so far this year is the company’s mid-range 12-inch MacBook.

Fret not, though, ladies and gents: Apple may have been riding the wave of success from its current Mac line for a bit too long now. But remember to keep in mind: these numbers could — and almost certainly will — turn around, perhaps even substantially so, when Apple takes the wraps off its latest ‘dramatically revamped’ MacBook Pro later on this fall.

Are you waiting for the 2016 MacBook Pro refresh to upgrade your machine?
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