At an event on Monday, it is expected that Apple will unveil its new series of Mac computers, as well as a possible chip which will power them, as it prepares to battle for market share with a new series of Windows PCs with improved battery life beginning next year.
The event will be livestreamed starting at 8 PM. The new devices will be revealed as Apple is seeing its Mac business revitalized, with its market share roughly doubling to almost 11% since 2020, after it parted ways with Intel and began using its own custom-designed CPUs for its machines. The event reportedly could include both desktops and laptops.
The custom chips Apple is now using, which are produced by ARM Holdings, have improved the battery life, and with some tasks, the performance of the machines they are used on, compared to traditional PCs.
After Apple’s success in the market with its own custom chips, Qualcomm has redoubled its development efforts to come up with an Arm-based chip for Windows systems. Last week it announced it will be releasing a chip which is both faster and more energy efficient than some of Apple’s designs. In addition, last week Reuters reported that Nvidia is looking to enter the PC market as soon as 2025.
Ben Bajarin, CEO and principal analyst at Creative Strategies, said, “The good thing here is, it feels like there’s a competitive environment again on PC and Mac chips.” He added that in addition, many computer manufacturers are racing to offer computers which are also optimized for artificial intelligence tasks, such as text and image generation.
The Mac generated $40.18 billion in revenue for fiscal 2022, which was roughly 11% of the company’s revenue. Although that was up 14% over the previous year, this year, as with most of the PC industry, sales have been slowing with the post-pandemic slump.
Analysts, including Bajarin, expect to see Apple debut a new chip called the M3 on Monday, including some higher performance variants. However it is still unknown how many models will be available with the new chips.
The M3 will reportedly be made with 3-nanometer manufacturing technology at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, using the same technology the firm uses to make chips for the highest-end iPhone 15 models.
Bajarin predicts that supply constraints will probably lead to Apple focusing on high-end Mac models for use by large businesses.
He said, “Most likely, more than 50% of their user base is still Intel-based Macs. Everything will be oriented at getting that Intel base to upgrade.”
