Windows 10 continues to help boost Mac sales
You can’t ignore the trend. Apple continues to be one of the big beneficiaries of the Windows 10 support shut down, with research from Counterpoint, IDC, Gartner, and others confirming Mac sales are increasing faster than the rate of PC industry growth. It means the switch is on.
Take the evidence, just in the last few weeks:
Counterpoint confirmed a 14.9% increase in Mac sales in Q3 2025, against an industry average of 8.1%.
IDC gave Apple a 13.7% growth rate in Mac sales, compared to what it saw as 9.4% industry growth. (It pegged Apple as holding 9% of the entire global PC market.)
Gartner determined that Apple experienced a 10.7% increase, with the industry reaching 69 million sales, up 8.2%.
With hundreds of millions of upgrades, percentages mean a lot
There are nuances of difference within the data points; many analysts see other PC makers also experiencing strong growth, with sales of smaller brand PCs seeing decline. But those slivers of difference don’t mask that all three analyst firms see Mac sales increasing at a rate that exceeds industry growth.
What this means for Apple is important. It means that with hundreds of millions of PCs still in use that need to be replaced because they cannot run Windows 11, more people than before are choosing to switch to Mac.
Certainly, not every customer purchasing a Mac is switching from Windows — many are upgrading existing Apple hardware, or may be shifting across from not owning any kind of PC. But the trend tells the tale of the resurgence of the Mac.
The forced Windows 11 upgrade isn’t the only story in town.
Thinking Machines
The need to invest in tech capable of running artificial intelligence is another yarn. Those same hundreds of millions of PCs that don’t run Windows are very unlikely to be able to handle on-device AI, and with many companies seeking to use this tech to get things done, it’s mandatory that IT invest in PCs fit for the task.
The Mac, of course, has already become a convincing platform for AI. We know that analysts tend to look through the facts with a Windows-tainted lens, but even they recognize that AI PCs are the other string to the upgrader’s bow.
“The PC market’s rebound in 2025 is not just about replacing outdated systems, it is about preparing for what is next,” said Counterpoint’s Associate Director, David Naranjo. “Many enterprises are choosing AI-capable PCs to future-proof their fleets, even if they do not yet need those capabilities immediately. The next refresh cycle will be defined by intelligence at the edge, not just performance improvements.”
That story of edge intelligence matters a great deal. It’s a story that can only be well told by computers capable of delivering edge-based artificial intelligence, which is something you can already expect from any Mac sold since 2020, thanks to the introduction of Apple Silicon.
Apple Silicon, the great enabler
Companies such as WebAI are already selling Mac-based AI systems to deliver highly secure AI operations at the edge, no servers required. These will only become more popular as enterprise purchasers develope a better understanding of the need for sovereign data services and compliant data security protections around the use of cloud services.
There’s also the likely truth that as the venture capital funding dwindles, many current generative AI services will be forced to pass costs onto their users to stay in the game. That means companies will be looking for services that can work at the edge, are highly secure, and don’t threaten their future business with vendor lock in.
Speaking to an audience of Apple enterprise developers and admins at MacAD 2025, Chris Chapman, CTO at MacStadium put this into perspective: “Apple has created a completely capable and powerful AI processing platform that speaks to the energy demand, the privacy, and the security that people are demanding around AI.”
Apple Silicon is its own story, of course, but as Apple’s recent M5 Macs showed, Apple is on a fast track to processor development. Early benchmarks show the M5 processors inside the portable entry-level MacBook Pro compete against the leading desktop processors from both Intel and AMD. Apple will introduce desktop versions of the M5 chips, and once it does, don’t be surprised to see these machines leap to the top, or near the top, of the performance charts.
The trend toward increasing Mac adoption isn’t just fashion, it reflects the extent to which Apple’s PCs now meet many of the evolving needs of business users.
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