Apple’s Mac charms the enterprise with AI inside

Apple and Lenovo were the only PC makers to experience any growth in the US desktop and notebook markets in the second quarter. Apple saw the highest year-on-year growth of all PC makers according to Canalys, part of Omdia.

That growth is significant: While the industry as a whole shipments for the second quarter drop by 1.4 percent compared to a year earlier, Apple experienced a 15.5% increase — the biggest in the business. Lenovo, the one PC maker that did experience some growth, saw an increase of just 5.1%. Many PC makers (Acer and others outside the top five) saw a 10% decline.

Which way to go?

The decline in shipments comes as the over-hyped end of support for Windows 10 nears. Many in the industry had expected PC sales to rise as the deadline approached and users migrated to new systems capable of running Windows 11. 

That’s happening, but many are making different choices. Sure, millions of Windows consumers are staying with Windows, but the big growth favors Apple, which now seems to account for 12.3% of all desktop and notebook computer sales in the US. 

This suggests a growing number of Windows users see the end of Windows 10 as a catalyst to upgrade, but to upgrade to a completely different platform.

Macs are perfect AI PCs

AI adoption is also driving PC sales, the analysts said. Apple, of course, arguably already makes the most powerful systems for artificial intelligence, as evidenced by the fact that you can quite literally run some LLM models natively on a MacBook Pro. Combined with the company’s willingness to partner with third-party AI services while continuing to develop its own, that trend toward AI PCs may well work in its favor. Particularly once the contextually smart side of Apple Intelligence is introduced next year.

Some argue Apple’s much publicized problems developing Apple Intelligence may have damaged its reach into the AI PC segment, but this may yet prove a false prognosis. 

A creative pause

After all, the shift to embrace artificial intelligence in business has itself not been totally smooth, with regulations, privacy, data protection and the risks of grey AI IT use getting in the way. These problems mean growth in enterprise AI deployment has slowed down a little.

“According to the US Census Business Trends and Outlook Survey, business adoption of AI has more than doubled over the last two years and seen a 50% increase in usage this year alone,” said Greg Davis, analyst at Canalys. 

“However, this summer, we have seen that the growth rate has slowed slightly for large businesses as concerns of getting stuck in pilot purgatory grew. As businesses begin to encounter problems with integrating AI into workflows, AI-capable PC vendors must demonstrate the value-add their devices could bring.”

Looking through Apple’s Overton window

These problems may yet translate into another window of opportunity for Apple, which will be able to re-promote Apple Intelligence across its platforms next year once it has truly impressive non-vaporware to talk about, particularly in terms of on-device and private cloud-delivered AI services. That privacy is and will be a selling point to many of the world’s biggest enterprises — many of whom (as the Canalys PC sales data suggests) are already increasing the size of their Mac (and iPhone/iPad) fleets. 

Apple’s growing opportunity in enterprise markets matters more than many think. Economic changes continue to dampen consumer sales, so targeting enterprise sales makes sense, and Apple is certainly achieving major enterprise computing wins.

We can see that this is mitigating the anticipated Windows 11 transition, but it also means consumers are willing to use the devices they have for longer. This opens up yet another slice of opportunity space for Apple, given its products have a long-proven, long-maintained reputation for resilience — this is, after all, why Apple’s products retain value on the second-user markets. The fact you can now pick up a highly impressive, AI-capable M4 MacBook Air for as little as $799 can only help — and that advantage can only grow if the company ships its first sub-$500 Mac notebook with one of its powerful iPhone chips (overclocked to exploit a larger heat sync) inside. 

There’s motion in this ocean

Look, it’s really hard to ignore all the momentum building up here. As Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said, “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.”

Here we are now:

Apple continues to grow PC sales at a rate higher than the PC industry; it now offers premium AI-capable machines at what seem to be increasingly competitive prices, its products work for ages, hold value longer, and are more secure than those from anyone else — and you get free, annual software upgrades.

None of this is hyperbole, all of this is happening, so it’s no surprise that Apple is seeing Mac sales grow at the expense of those who once condemned the company for making toys. These toys have become highly effective business machines, and now the upgrade opportunity has been forced upon them, many in business are beginning to notice. 

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