IDC says Apple took almost 10% of global PC sales

Hot on the heels of Omdia/Informa’s claim that Macs have now grabbed 11% of the enterprise PC market, IDC is out the box with its own report showing Mac sales growing at a rate that far exceeds the industry.

Growing faster than the industry

The analysts claim global PC shipments grew 2.5% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026, reaching 65.6 million units, another quarter of growth which they say was mostly fuelled by the anticipation of rising component prices, Windows 10 migration, and new product introductions.

They kind of don’t mention that the 2.5% growth was also fuelled by growing Mac adoption, which perhaps they should have done considering Apple took 9.5% of global market share that year.

So many headwinds

They also look with bleak glasses at the looming impact of looming economic shocks caused by a toxic combination of rapidly increasing component prices and the horrible impact of war. Though I feel Apple may be less exposed to some of these challenges than its peers.

“The Middle East conflict has injected a fresh layer of volatility into a fragile computing devices market, straining global logistics through a double-edged sword of rising energy costs and freight spikes,” said analyst Isaac Ngatia. 

The impact of all of this will be the creation of fresh challenges.

 “As expected, 2026 will be characterized by market share shifts,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research vice-president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers.

“The strength of every PC vendor’s supply chain and ability to access core components, such as memory, will be tested. IDC believes that demand will be met by PC vendors who have best secured access to memory and with a device portfolio capable of addressing all price tiers of the market.”

Navigation for the rest of us

Which we recently heard may be something Apple may already have turned into an advantage.

Here is the latest IDC data, as you can see it places Apple as the world’s fourth biggest PC maker, though the analysis doesn’t pick up the potentially record-breaking sales of the MacBook Neo, which may have a material impact on Apple’s results in the coming quarter.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe. Also, now on Mastodon.