Apple has announcedrecord-breaking revenues for the first quarter of 2020in nearly every product category, from the iPhone to Apple Music. There’s one sore spot in the mix, however: the Mac.
Mac fans often lament the lack of focus from Apple on its laptops and desktops. The marquee announcements often emphasize the iPhone — or more recently, services likeApple TV+andApple Music. But given the results the company is seeing from Mac, it’s easy to see what they’re talking about.
The Mac didn’t experience much in growth year-over-year, with $7.2 billion in revenue. The same goes for the iPad, which was at $6 billion.
Major Mac releases in 2019 included the Mac Pro, the Pro Display XDR, andthe 16-inch MacBook Pro. The company also made smaller updates to products like the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
These products have been praised by the professional community, many of which undid the damage done by previous generations. The 16-inch MacBook Pro, for example, replaced the troubling butterfly switch keyboard with a more conventional one. The new Mac Pro is a more modular system with greater performance potential than the previous Mac Pro.
Apple said it faced a “tough year-over-year” comparison because of the launch of products like the MacBook Air and Mac mini in 2018. These are cheaper, entry-level products that provide a lower barrier to entry for the Apple brand. It is also notable that the launch of the new Pro-level products all came rather late in 2019, and were situated squarely in the higher-end of the market.
Apple did not comment on future Mac products on its earnings call, butwe expect some big launches in 2020. In particular, we expect thesmaller, 13-inch MacBook Proto get a similar treatment to its bigger sibling, with a larger screen, thinner bezels, and an updated keyboard. It could be released as soon as the next few months.
We also anticipate some movement onan ARM-based MacBookthat finally ditches Intel chips for its own A-series processors. We speculate that such a laptop could get announced or previewed at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
