Enlarge / Apple’s M2 Professional Mac mini. (credit score: Andrew Cunningham)

The analysts at IDC have launched their worldwide PC gross sales numbers for the primary quarter of 2023, and the information is not good for PC firms. IDC says that each one the businesses mixed shipped 56.9 million PCs in Q1 of 2023, down 29 % from Q1 of 2022, when pandemic-era demand for brand new computer systems was simply starting to fade. Apple’s Mac gross sales are sometimes immune to those sorts of fluctuations, however IDC says the corporate was hit notably laborious this quarter, with shipments falling from 6.9 million models in Q1 of 2022 to 4.1 million models in Q1 of 2023. That is a drop of 40.5 %, greater than that seen by Lenovo, HP, Dell, Asus, and all the businesses lumped in with “Others” in IDC’s knowledge.

IDC has famous that PC demand by way of 2022 was nonetheless increased than pre-pandemic ranges, regardless of falling from the highs seen in 2020 and 2021. However the first quarter of 2023 reveals “at the very least a brief return to pre-COVID patterns.” That sample, for many who do not bear in mind, was one in every of a protracted, sluggish decline as individuals changed PCs much less usually and did extra of their computing on smartphones and different gadgets. IDC says PC makers shipped 60.6 million PCs in Q1 of 2018 and 59.2 million PCs in Q1 of 2019.

IDC knowledge must be taken with a grain of salt; these are guesses about gross sales based mostly on accessible knowledge. Apple does not launch Mac unit gross sales as a part of its monetary experiences anymore, however its Mac income numbers normally do not fairly line up with IDC’s unit gross sales figures, although the broad trendlines are comparable.