Apple’s MacBooks, iPads see market share gains in 2021

If you’re looking for something that’s moving forward in the computer industry then perhaps you should take a look at Apple’s market share, with Macbooks and iPads continuing to see market gains even as iPhone leads in its own segment.

Apple is growing share

Fresh insights from IDC, Strategy Analytics and Counterpoint give us insight into all these products in the PC, tablet, and smartphone markets. Between them, they illustrate Apple’s continued market growth, even in segments in which there is overall decline.

Here’s what the analysts said, beginning with the product that started it all, the Mac.

Apple grabs 10% of the notebook market

We know the PC market is dominated by notebooks. Apple may not lead the segment, sitting in fourth place behind Lenovo, HP and Dell, but its M-powered notebook Macs gave it 11 percent growth in Q4 and 26% gains across 2021. It is also interesting that in Q4 Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max Macs kicked the system during a quarter when every other vendor bar Dell saw sales decline.

“Apple MacOS carried the momentum from September quarter and set an all-time record in the company’s history with shipping more than 6.6 million MacBooks during the holiday quarter, an 11% growth from Q4 2020,” the analysts said.

Perhaps more important to note is that Apple’s Q4 21 notebook market share reached a once unheard of 10%, and while there’s a way to go to catch up with Dell the company’s clear brand differentiation and success with its M-series chips suggests it has a growth story to tell.

Strategy Analytics

Apple takes 34% of the tablet market

The tablet market is quite a wide congregation, but it’s one that Apple leads by a very wide margin. The iPad holds 34.2% of the 2021 market, grabbing 38% of sales in Q4. There was some dark news – Apple’s iPad sales fell by 1.6m units in Q4, but so did everybody else’s too, meaning the company still built a bigger lead.

The tablet market declined 11.9% in the quarter. While Apple declined by 8.6%, Samsung and Lenovo saw their tablet shipments fall 21.6% and 25.4% respectively. The result? Relatively speaking, Apple’s share of the market increased.

IDC thinks component shortages (which Apple admitted to in its recent financial call) and a slowdown in tablet purchasing following rapid deployment during Coronavirus means sales are beginning to normalize. Apple hasn’t rested on its laurels on tablets. We know it may have planned to introduce a new iPad Air to boost sales in the last quarter, but now expect the product will appear alongside the iPhone SE 5G in a few weeks time.

IDC

Apple has 22% of the smartphone market

With record-setting demand for iPhone 13, Apple has become the world’s top smartphone maker according to recent data from Canalys. The company took 22% of smartphone sales across Q4 21 in the quarter, the analyst said.

Since this news, data from various analysts has confirmed Apple leadership across multiple markets, including Europe and China.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty thinks the iPhone installed base grew 9% in the last year to achieve 1.1 billion, meaning around one in every seven humans on the planet now runs an iPhone.

Canalys

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