Mac Revenue Down 34% Year-Over-Year, But Tim Cook Expects 'Significant' Improvement With M3 Macs

Apple today shared its earnings results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2023 (third calendar quarter), and Mac revenue saw a major drop compared to last year.

Mac sales came in at $7.6 billion in Q4 2023, down 34 percent from $11.5 billion in the year-ago quarter. Mac revenue for all of 2023 was $29.4 billion, down from $40.2 billion in 2022.

Apple CFO Luca Maestri attributed the drop to challenging market conditions and challenging compares to last year's Mac lineup. Because of supply chain issues during the June 2022 quarter, Mac sales spiked in the September 2022 quarter, which did not happen this year. Apple also updated the MacBook Air in June 2023 rather than September, which impacted September quarter sales compared to last year.

Apple did release new M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max Macs in late October, but sales of those devices will be reflected in the December quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that he expects Mac performance to improve over the holidays.

"I think the Mac is going to have a significantly better quarter in the December quarter," said Cook. "We've got the M3, we've got the new products, and we don't have the compare phenomenon on a year-over-year basis," Cook said.

Apple began allowing customers to purchase the new M3 Macs on Monday, with shipments to begin arriving next week. Apple appears to have plenty of supply of the new models, so there should be no supply constraints during the upcoming holidays.