Understanding what’s taking place to Mac gross sales over the previous few years is a difficult enterprise, because of the convergence of three various factors: pandemic-induced demand, COVID-related provide disruptions, and early upgrades pushed by the swap to Apple Silicon.

Final week’s earnings report led some to wonder if Mac gross sales have been in hassle, however my very own view is that the underlying longer-term development of gradual and regular upward development is actually unchanged …

When Apple reported its fiscal This autumn 2023 earnings final week, it’s simple that on a year-on-year foundation, Mac gross sales fell off a cliff. Mac income for This autumn 2023 was a full 34% down on the identical quarter in 2022.

Apple supplied an evidence for this:

• Q3 2022 noticed COVID-related manufacturing unit shutdowns, so Mac provide was constrained
• When manufacturing totally resumed, that noticed a man-made spike in This autumn 2022 gross sales
• So in fact This autumn 2023 didn’t match this synthetic peak

Macworld’s Jason Cross wrote a provocatively-titled piece: Irrespective of how Apple spins it, individuals have stopped shopping for Macs, through which he initially seems to take concern with this argument.

Through the use of this excuse, Cook dinner and Maestri are deflecting consideration from the true, incontrovertible numbers: Mac income for fiscal 2023 was $29.4 billion, down 37 % from the earlier yr’s file $40.2 billion. That’s a “powerful examine” that features each the quarter the place the Mac was affected by manufacturing unit shutdowns and the quarter the place Apple bought an entire bunch of Macs to be able to fulfill demand. Put them collectively, and it’s nonetheless a stupendous drop in gross sales.

This yr’s Mac income quantity was additionally down 20 % from fiscal 2021 when Apple bought $35.2 billion in Macs. So it’s a dramatic drop from the final two years of Mac gross sales, regardless of the way you slice it.

Headlines are brief; articles are lengthy – so it’s no shock that Cross’s place is extra nuanced than it would seem. He goes on to say that should you fully disregard 2021 and 2022, then 2023 truly sees us returning to the earlier trendline.

That is very a lot my very own view. With tens of millions of individuals working from dwelling throughout pandemic lockdowns, individuals wanted machines which might enable them to work successfully utilizing nothing greater than the package they’d at dwelling. That generated an enormous surge in laptop computer gross sales usually, and in Macbooks particularly.

On the identical time, Apple Silicon Macs arrived on the scene. Individuals usually hold onto their Macs for a very long time. 5 years might be typical, whereas they nonetheless stay very usable for ten. Intel-based Macs have been extra of a gradual evolution, so there wasn’t a lot purpose to improve extra often.

However Apple Silicon modified that. The development in each processing energy and battery life was so nice that many have been tempted to improve a lot prior to regular.

Put the 2 elements collectively, and it’s no shock that there was an enormous spike in Mac gross sales in 2021 and 2022.

What we’re seeing now’s the resumption of enterprise as regular. Whereas the tempo of Apple Silicon improvement is undeniably sooner than that of Intel, few can afford to improve their Mac every time a shiny new chip is launched. Most individuals will make the soar to an M-series Mac sooner than deliberate, then return to their regular improve cycle.

We’ll want to attend just a few quarters to make certain, however my very own view is that after these spikes, the long-term development for Mac goes to be steadily upwards, simply because it was earlier than. How about you? Please share your individual take within the feedback.