Apple suffered one of the biggest slowdowns in the shipments of its personal computers in the first quarter, according to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report. The 40.5 percent dip in shipments is Apple’s worst since 2000, which according to the report is because of the end of the pandemic boom.
During the pandemic, when people were forced to stay indoors, Mac sales surged due to unexpected demand for personal computers that could make facilitate remote learning and working. But as the pandemic subsided and offices and schools began to reopen, the demand began shrinking. IDC reported that overall PC shipments declined by 29 percent to 56.9 million units.
Apple took the worst hit as it shipped only 4.1 million units between January and March this year. Market leaders Lenovo and Dell saw a decline of over 30 percent, while HP’s PC shipments were down 24.2 percent. Asus closed the quarter with a dip of 30.3 percent, the IDC report said.
The fall in shipments of Mac devices is bad news for Apple, which launched some of the highly anticipated products during the pandemic. While it revamped the MacBook Air around the onset of the pandemic, Apple last year wooed customers with the launch of the M2 MacBook Pro and M2 Mac mini. The M2-powered machines did not sell as much as the first crop of Apple M-powered Mac devices.
During the earnings call in February, Apple’s chief financial officer Luca Maestri said the company expects a drop in Mac revenue by a double-digit percentage in the March quarter. Chief executive officer Tim Cook said the current MacBook sales were bound to be lacklustre because of the successful computer product launch in the previous year.