Image via Apple
Even with nowhere near enough tablets ahead of the holidays, new numbers from Canalys show iPad owned the tablet space in the U.S. for the fourth-quarter of 2021. 9 to 5 Mac writes up some of the firm’s findings. By their estimation, Apple shipped 5.1 million iPads in the States in the December-quarter. That was down nearly 38% from the 8.2 million shipped for the same quarter a year earlier. Despite the drop, Apple was the way in front leader for fondle-slabs, with a 40.2% share of the U.S. market. Amazon was second with a 26.4%. Samsung was third with a 14.0%… and why shame the rest of them?
The piece says, “Demand for tablets as a whole decreased, as shipments declined 31%.” You kind of wonder, though, if that would have been better had Apple had enough iPads for the holidays.
Okay… But What About Computers?
Canalys also had a look at sales of traditional computers for both the fourth-quarter of 2021 and the full year. For the year, the firm had Apple shipping an estimated 10 million Macs. That was up 12% from the estimated 8.9 million shipped in 2020 - enough to give Apple fourth-place in traditional computers and a market share of 11%. No growth at year’s end, though. Rather, an estimated decline. Canalys figures Apple shipped 2.8 million Macs in the December-quarter. That was down about 3% from the 2.9 million it’s estimated to have shipped the same quarter a year earlier. That kept the company in fourth-place, though with a slightly larger market share. Canalys pegs that at 13.4%.
All of that is kind of odd. On Apple’s December-quarter earnings call, executives said the Mac saw sales of $10.8 billion, up 25% from the $8.7 billion grabbed for the same quarter a year earlier. Execs said that that marked as an all time revenue record for the category. And therein lies one of the problems with estimates like those made by Canalys. Did revenue go up because people are buying higher-end machines? Are people boosting their specs because they figure they’ll be working from home for who-knows-how-long? Or is Canalys simply wrong in its estimates?
Feel free to decide, since we’ll never know.
