Apple Sells 3.95M Macs In Q2 2013, Nearly Flat From Q2 2012 And Down 1.25% Sequentially
Apple’s Mac sales continued to slide this quarter, as Apple sold only 3.95 million computers running OS X, down just over 1 percent from the 4.1 million they sold in Q1 2013, and pretty much flat compared to the 4 million they sold in the same quarter last year. That’s no surprise: PC sales are sluggish in general, and while Macs aren’t running wild, flat growth is better than a dip.
Mac sales likely weren’t helped by the fact that Apple did not release any majorly updated hardware during the quarter. It did make some changes on the hardware side, however; back in February it made minor internal spec bumps to the Retina MacBook Pro, and introduced some pricing changes to the Retina Pro, MacBook Air and SSD upgrades. Apple was probably hoping that would be enough to give Mac sales a good boost in lieu of major new hardware, especially the $200 price drop on the 13-inch Retina MacBook pro, which before the change wasn’t priced too much lower than the 15-inch model, which boasts a dedicated internal graphics card and therefore offers much better gaming and 3D graphics performance.
Macs sales being relatively sluggish isn’t the end of the world for Apple, and it’s been clear for a while now that iOS and iOS devices including the iPad and iPhone are getting the lion’s share of the company’s attention. As Apple executives including Tim Cook have said in the past, Apple isn’t worried about cannibalization, so long as its own products are the ones eating away at market share. And judging by the 19.5 million iPads sold during the quarter, which topped expectations, that’s exactly what it’s doing.