Apple's Mac sales soar due to AI workloads
What's the story
Apple's latest earnings report has revealed a surprising spike in demand for its Mac computers, driven largely by artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. The tech giant's second-quarter revenue for the Mac segment stood at $8.4 billion, beating Wall Street's expectations of around $8 billion. This is significant growth, considering investors had predicted flat sales year-over-year (YoY).
Financial performance
Total revenue for the quarter was $111.2 billion
Apple's total revenue for the quarter was $111.2 billion, a 17% increase from the same period last year. The company attributed some of this Mac growth to new product launches like the popular MacBook Neo. However, CEO Tim Cook revealed that customer demand for this model was "off the charts" and exceeded Apple's expectations.
AI impact
Cook attributes growth in Mac sales to local AI models
Cook also credited the growth in Mac sales to their use for running local AI models such as OpenClaw. He said, "Both of these are amazing platforms for AI and agentic tools, and the customer recognition of that is happening faster than what we had predicted." This unexpected demand led to the sell-out of Mac mini and Mac Studio devices in recent weeks.
Market shift
Apple is still supply-constrained on the MacBook Neo'
Apple also noted that some large companies, including Perplexity, have chosen Mac as their platform for building enterprise-grade AI assistants. Despite the growth in sales, Cook admitted that Apple is still "supply constrained on the MacBook Neo," and it may take "several months" to reach a balance between supply and demand for the Mac mini and Mac Studio models. He said this isn't due to a problem but because they underestimated the demand.