Apple’s Mac business ended 2025 with flat year-over-year shipments in the holiday quarter despite a broader rebound in the global PC market, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).
The findings suggest that global PC shipments rose 9.6% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 76.4 million units, exceeding expectations as brands accelerated purchases ahead of anticipated supply constraints and component price increases. Within that total, Apple shipped 7.1 million Macs during the quarter, which is essentially unchanged from the same period a year earlier, resulting in a decline in quarterly market share even as the overall market expanded.
Apple ranked fourth globally behind Lenovo, HP, and Dell, all of which posted double-digit shipment growth. Lenovo shipped 19.3 million units in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 14.4% year over year, while HP shipped 15.4 million units, up 12.1%. Dell recorded the fastest growth among the top three at 18.2%, with 11.7 million units shipped.
IDC attributed the stronger-than-expected fourth quarter to factors including the end of support for Windows 10, tariff-related uncertainty earlier in the year, and growing concern over tightening memory supply. These dynamics encouraged many vendors to pull forward inventory purchases into late 2025, amplifying the usual holiday period seasonal uplift.
For the full year, Apple’s performance was more robust. IDC estimates that Apple shipped 25.6 million Macs in 2025, up from 23.0 million units in 2024, representing year-over-year growth of 11.1%. That increase outpaced the overall PC market, which grew 8.1% to 284.7 million units globally. Apple’s annual market share rose to 9.0% from 8.7% the year before, even as its fourth-quarter share fell to 9.3% from 10.2% in the fourth quarter of 2024 due to faster growth by major Windows brands.
This article, “Mac Shipments Were Flat at the End of 2025 as Rival PC Brands Surged” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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