Market researchers: Users keep Macs longer
A market survey shows that users are using their Apple notebooks and Apple desktops for longer. However, this may also be due to the lower SoC advances.
MacBook M1: Still running well.
(Image: Nanain/Shutterstock.com)
It's actually good and sustainable when users don't change their hardware so quickly. It also shows that it is durable. Nevertheless, a new survey is not a good signal for Apple: as the market research company Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) has discovered, Macs are now being used for longer than before. This means that Apple is missing out on opportunities to sell more products. The reason for this is apparently the switch to Apple Silicon, which the company completed in 2020. This made the popular MacBooks in particular more powerful with longer battery life, while the systems are virtually fanless - quite the opposite of the previous Mac world with Intel chips.
Users wanted to switch faster in 2020
As CIRP writes, the difference is statistically significant. According to the company's information base, which includes anonymized purchase data primarily from Western countries, 59 percent of Mac users reported that their computer was two years old or older in 2020. In the last 12-month period recorded, which ended in March 2024, CIRP now comes to 68 percent of users with such old computers. Only 13 percent of machines were less than one year old, 19 percent one to two years old and 13 percent two to three years old.
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"The trend towards using devices for longer is slow but steady," write the market researchers. "As computer users rely more and more on streaming and web-based applications and programs, the traditional motivation for computer upgrades has waned." For most computer owners, their current computer offers sufficient storage space and a sufficiently fast processing speed. The most important purchasing factor is increasingly the battery life - and Apple has already significantly optimized this with the M1 SoC from 2020.
The iPhone also lasts longer
CIRP has also collected data on the iPhone. Here, the proportion of devices owned for two years or more rose from 63% (2020) to 71% (by March 2024). While the Mac is now primarily seeing gradual improvements with new SoCs such as the upcoming M4, Apple still has a good chance of the next "Super Cycle" with the iPhone: the new AI functions as part of Apple Intelligence only run on current devices (currently only on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max), which could encourage users to upgrade.
On the Mac, Apple could tweak the form factor. Although the MacBook Air 13 is a slim and lightweight device, the company has still not come close to the 12-inch MacBook, which was launched in 2019, with Apple Silicon. However, there have only been a few rumors recently.
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