Although the global PC industry has yet to recover from the downturn, Apple may see the light of hope in India as its MacBook sales have increased rapidly and may compete with Acer and Asus.
IDC's latest market tracker shows that global PC shipments declined by 29% in the first quarter of 2023 due to excess inventory and poor demand. Apple saw its PC shipments fall by 40.5%, the worst among major brands.
Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Anurag Rana and Andrew Girard said in a research note that Apple's 40% drop points to further weakening of consumer spending and will likely lead to a downward revision of consensus Mac revenue for a 22% decline for the March quarter.
IDC has yet to reveal India's PC shipment data for the first quarter, but Apple sales have remained solid for the past quarters in the South Asian country that Apple sees as a one of its focus markets. According to IDC's market trackers, India saw strong performance for the premium consumer notebooks in the third quarter, partly thanks to Apple. Furthermore, Apple made it to the top five PC vendors for the fourth quarter of 2022 after consistently clocking solid sales in the last few quarters.
Bharath Shenoy, senior market analyst of PC Devices at IDC India, told Business Standard that over the past six-seven quarters, Apple was very aggressive in India, with MacBook shipments going up to 150,000 units per quarter, up from around 30,000–50,000 before 2020.
Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Research, told Business Standard that Apple has the potential to enter the top five in market share and compete with Acer and Asus for the fourth and fifth positions. According to Business Standard, MacBooks account for most of Apple's PC sales in India.
Despite Apple's PC products being primarily targeted toward the consumer market, MacBook's presence in the commercial market has also gradually increased as customers such as Wipro are procuring Apple products to retain and attract talents.
Meanwhile, Apple said in a press release that its two Apple stores, Apple BKC in Mumbai and Apple Saket in Delhi, will be opened on April 18 and April 20, respectively. The launch of the stores indicates Apple is looking to expand in India when other major markets, such as China, are saturated.
