The eight reasons people upgrade Mac or PC, as shipments surge

A new market intelligence report lists the eight reasons people opt to upgrade Mac or PC, divided into three categories.

It also reveals that Mac shipments grew faster than any PC brand in the first quarter of the year, with year–on–year growth of almost 29% …

Canalys measures shipments rather than sales. These are often closely related, but there are a number of ways in which they may differ.

In this case, the market intelligence firm says that concerns about tariffs have led resellers to import more stock than usual in order to avoid potentially higher costs down the line. While that makes Q1 look good, Canalys warns that we’re likely to see a corresponding fall in shipments later in the year.

A surge in sell-in activity by vendors driven by efforts to navigate tariff announcements has led to significant inventory buildup that will now need to be cleared. This, combined with downward pressure on consumer spending, will lead to a market slowdown for the remainder of the year.

Mac shipments grew 28.7% year–on–year, outperforming those of HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and others.

The firm also had some advice for retailers: when creating marketing messages, pay close attention to the eight main reasons people upgrade. Vendors tend to place too much emphasis on specs, says Canalys, which is just one factor.

For vendors and channel partners, this underscores the need to simplify the buyer experience through clear, needs-based messaging and streamlined product portfolios. The channel must proactively guide consumers through a coherent and intuitive purchasing process, helping them easily identify devices tailored to their needs.

The eight purchase drivers identified are:

While “too slow or outdated” also ultimately relates to specs, most buyers relate best to Apple’s approach of stating ‘X times faster’ rather than the typical PC speak of clock speeds and other technical data.

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Photo by Alex Bachor on Unsplash