Oh, the PC market is dying? Well, I guess somebody forgot to tell that to Apple. While the overall market for personal computers has been on the decline for years, Apple is actually selling record numbers of Macs, with nearly six million being sold last quarter. As impressive as that is, it’s counteracted by the fact that its iPad sales are still lackluster, at least when compared to previous quarters.
We’re supposed to be living in a “post-PC” world, but Apple’s Mac computer line just won’t die. On its quarterly earnings call Oct. 27, CEO Tim Cook said Apple had a record quarter for Mac sales, selling 5.7 million Macs—a million more than last quarter—even as the overall computer market continues to shrink. On the other hand, iPad sales sunk to their lowest level since June 2011, with Apple shifting just 9.8 million this past quarter. While Apple is still selling more iPads than Macs, its computer sales are slowly creeping toward its tablet’s numbers. Each holiday quarter for the last few years, the iPad has seen a spike in sales, but will that happen this coming quarter? The iPhone accounts for roughly two thirds of Apple’s sales, and now that it makes the oversized Plus model, customers may be less likely to upgrade their iPads. Apple acknowledged this on the call, with Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri saying that Apple will now recognize the deferred revenue of iPads over three years, instead of two.
