Apple has competed fearlessly with PC companies for decades. A recent market research has revealed that Mac sales are on the decline. During the second quarter of this year, the company sold 4.4 million pieces, which is a decline from 4.8 million the same quarter last year.
Globally, sales of computers have fallen by 5.2%, according to Gartner. The only region to register an increase in sales is North America. The data by Gartner included notebook PCs, hybrid PCs and desktop computers and excluded tablets.
Lenovo remained to be the world’s biggest PC vendor. The Chinese-based company has a 20.5% market share. However, the company experienced the fifth consecutive drop in sales during the second quarter of 2016.
HP and Dell held the 2nd and 3rd positions respectively. HP continued to perform well in EMEA, where it has the largest sales. The company recorded a 1.8% increase in sales, which translates to 12.3 million pieces. Dell had a good quarter, which saw sales increase by 3.1%. The company shipped 9.8 million pieces.
Shockingly, ASUS took the fourth position ahead of tech giant Apple. The latter now has a 7.1% market share. In the second quarter of last year, Apple had a 7.4% market share. The decline in Mac sales can be attributed to several factors. Stiff competition and seasonal fluctuation are the top reasons for the decline in sales. Tech critics are also blaming the delayed release of the 2016 MacBook Pro.
Apple PC sales are expected to hit the ceiling once the next-gen MacBook Pro has been released. The Mac is rumored to run the new chipset by Intel, Intel Skylake and other state-of-the-art features such as USB-C and wireless charging.
Mikako Kitagawa, a principal analyst at Gartner, said that the poor performance of other currencies compared to the dollar have caused a decline in the sale of computers. The report continued to explain that the decline in sales was steepest in Latin America and Russia.