Apple sold fewer Macs in the third quarter of 2026 and still gained ground, because the rest of the PC market fell faster.
Counterpoint Research's preliminary estimates put Mac shipments at 5.6 million units, down 11% from the same quarter last year. Worldwide PC shipments dropped 21% to 57 million units. That gap lifted Apple's share from 8.7% to 9.8%. Counterpoint credited the MacBook Neo for some of Apple's resilience, though the firm's summary gives no unit figures for that model.
The firm's explanation for the slump is cost. Counterpoint said higher memory and component prices have fed through to PC prices, which pushed consumers to put off buying replacements. Business fleet refreshes and the migration to Windows kept some demand alive, it said, but not enough to stop the contraction.
The vendors ahead of Apple fared worse. Lenovo led with a 26.3% share, followed by HP at 18.1% and Dell at 13.3%. Their shipments fell 23%, 31%, and 25%, respectively. HP's drop was almost three times Apple's.
This is a gain in share, not in sales. Apple shrank, just more slowly than most of the field, and in a market this weak that is the number that moves the rankings. Apple stayed fourth, so the gain did not change its position.
ASUS, in fifth place, was the only top-five vendor to decline less than Apple. Its shipments fell 7%, leaving it with a 9.2% share. Just 0.6 percentage points now separate the two, and ASUS is losing volume more slowly than Apple is.