Analysis: Mac grew 16% and iPad grow 15% in China in the fourth quarter of 2025
by Horace Dediu
Not just the iPhone.
Both the Mac and iPad marketshare in China grew year-over-year in 2025, according to new data from the Omdia research group.
Apple sold 700,000 Macs in the fourth quarter of 2025 for 6% market share. That compares to sales of 600,000 Macs and 5% market share in the fourth quarter of 2024. That’s 14% annual growth.
Apple sold 2.3 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2025 for 25% market share. That compares to sales of 2 million iPads and 24% market share in the fourth quarter of 2024. That’s 16% annual growth.
Looking ahead, China’s PC and tablet markets face significant headwinds. Omdia forecasts PC shipments in China will decline to 37.9 million units in 2026. This decline will be more pronounced in the consumer segment, which is expected to contract 12% compared to 2025. Tablet shipments are also projected to fall 11% to 32 million units in 2026, following elevated performance in 2025.
Source: Apple World Today
NB: I make it out to be 16% Mac growth not 14% and 15% iPad growth not 16%.
Not sure what's happening with the calculations here casting suspicion on the accuracy of the research. The precision to nearest 100,000 for both products seems also strange.
Regardless, the growth in China sales overall is a matter of public knowledge. We are just usually not hearing anything other than iPhone. It stands to reason that the Mac and iPhone are also growing in the country.
Contraction in 2026 is also being forecast on the phone market but Apple is expected to buck the trend. I can't assume that it's a different story for the Mac given the launch of the Neo.
2 comments
AAPL ·
This person's thoughts might be wrong but if correct Mac marketshare growth may be even higher but with a corresponding hit to operating profit.
(Want to hear something interesting? Apple is more aggressive this year than ever before. They're buying up all available mobile DRAM on the market at extremely high prices, even at the cost of operating profit losses. This isn't because Apple is being naive — they're deliberately driving up DRAM prices so that competitors can't secure memory. The goal is to prevent competitors from building devices due to memory shortages. I believe Apple will achieve tremendous market share gains this year.)
farshad ·
Could it be that they expect demand for the products to be high, no?
They may accept a lower operating profit in on their products for example to continue to maintain and grow customers base. The Services strategy will make up for it by adding a long tail ‘multiple’ to each sale, as well, offsetting the initial increase in costs.
It might be possible to compute the ratio of Product to Services revenue for each product. This would be interesting to consider.