Apple shipped 5.9 million Macs in Q3 2026, an 11.3% drop from the same quarter last year. The Mac still gained PC market share, because worldwide PC shipments fell 20.1% to 62.7 million units. Apple’s share rose from 8.5% to 9.5%, and it held fourth place behind Lenovo, HP Inc, and Dell Technologies.
The figures come from IDC’s preliminary PC tracker results, published on October 8. It was the second straight quarterly decline for the PC market, and a much deeper one than the 3.8% drop in Q2. Shipments also fell 9.1% from the previous quarter, which breaks the usual pattern where Q3 is bigger than Q2.
Apple Fell Less Than Every Major Rival Except ASUS
Apple’s 11.3% decline was roughly half the pace of the overall market. Among the top five vendors, only ASUS did better, with a drop of 8.6%. The top five finished like this in Q3 2026.
- Lenovo: 14.9 million units, 23.8% share, down 22.6%
- HP Inc: 10.3 million units, 16.5% share, down 30.9%
- Dell Technologies: 7.6 million units, 12.1% share, down 25.0%
- Apple: 5.9 million units, 9.5% share, down 11.3%
- ASUS: 5.5 million units, 8.7% share, down 8.6%
Lenovo, HP Inc, and Dell Technologies all fell faster than the market and together gave up 4.2 points of share. IDC says they were likely facing the effects of the inventory pull-in earlier in the year. Apple gained one point of share compared with a year ago, and ASUS gained 1.1 points.
Omdia, another research firm, counted 6.8 million Macs for the quarter with the PC market down 21.2%. The two trackers disagree on exact units, but both have Apple falling by about 11% in a market that shrank by roughly a fifth. Mac shipments had grown in the previous quarter while the wider market was already shrinking, so Q3 is a reversal for the Mac, though a smaller one than the rest of the market saw.
Prices Will Stay High and IDC Expects a Harder Road Ahead
IDC blames the drop on an inventory pull-in earlier in the year. Vendors and channels stocked up ahead of memory-driven price hikes, which borrowed volume from the second half. Continued supply constraints and higher prices tied to the AI data center build out made the gap wider.
Jitesh Ubrani, research director for consumer devices at IDC, said channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand. That could bring promotions and some short-term relief for shoppers, but he does not expect pricing anywhere near what it was a year ago. With macro conditions worsening, he says the outlook for the next few quarters could get “worse before it gets better.”
Apple is already part of that price story. The company raised Mac prices in June, which moved the MacBook Neo from $599 to $699 for most buyers. The same memory shortage has hit supply too, with the MacBook Air back-ordered until late August.
IDC says a weaker economy could push demand lower and darken the outlook for the rest of 2026 and into 2027.
Our Take
I think an 11.3% drop is hard to call good news, but the context is important here. Apple gained a full point of share in a quarter when the PC market lost nearly 16 million units compared with a year ago.
The MacBook Neo at $699 gives Apple an entry point while PC prices stay high across the board. The touchscreen MacBook Pro expected on October 27 will show how many buyers still pay up when prices climb.
