Apple falls to 6th place among laptop makers; new MacBook may be on its way

THE TrendForce released yesterday its latest survey of the performance of the leading manufacturers in the global laptop market and the news is not as good for Apple as it was, by the way, to imagine, considering that Apple sold fewer Macs in the last quarter than in all the previous ones since 2010.

With 3.72 million Macs shipped in the second quarter, the Cupertino giant dropped to the sixth place Among portable computer manufacturers in the first quarter of 2018, Ma ranked fourth. In absolute numbers of units shipped, Apple fell 2.8% year-on-year or 10.2% over the previous quarter. Its market share also fell from 7.7% (earlier this year) to current 6.5%.

Laptop Manufacturers Sales, Q2 2018, TrendForce

Things are even more delicate for Apple considering it is falling in a growing market every quarter. The handheld segment as a whole saw a jump of 10.2% compared to the previous quarter and all manufacturers above Apple in the ranking, except for ASUS, also grew with emphasis on the HP, market leader that saw a jump of 19.7%, and mainly to third place Dell, which rose 30%.

Of course, of course: It should be noted that in the last quarter all the lines of portable Macs were out of date and this may have contributed greatly to the downturn. Now the MacBooks Pro has received attention from Ma and we may begin to see some reaction from Cupertino on the list. But is that enough? Good by the same TrendForce, maybe more help is on the way.

According to the firm, Apple is planning to launch a new MacBook Air (or was it MacBook?) at the end of the current quarter, as it concludes a transition phase in which the company would upgrade all of its portable Macs. According to the Taiwanese:

The second quarter was the transition period for the release of the upcoming new MacBook devices for the rest of the year. TrendForce, therefore, expects MacBook shipments to grow again in the third quarter, as Apple releases a new MacBook Pro early in the period and a new MacBook Air at the end.

The new MacBook Pro to which the firm refers, of course, has already been launched. It is well known why the note speaks of an event that has already occurred as something yet to happen. TrendForce does not cite the sources from which it got this information, so we should take everything with a certain degree of skepticism, but look forward to seeing more news in this regard. The rumors are in full swing after all.

via Cult of Mac