Apple’s Q1 2026 forecast suggests the Mac lineup will face a challenging year-over-year comparison to close out the year. The reason is straightforward: nearly every consumer and prosumer Mac was refreshed ahead of the 2024 holiday season, while this year saw only one new model.
In October 2024, Apple surprised everyone by unveiling the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips simultaneously, powering the full range of MacBook Pro models. The move paid off, as Mac sales surged through the holiday quarter.
During Apple’s latest earnings call, Senior Vice President Kevan Parekh acknowledged that Q1 2026 will be a “tough compare” for the Mac. With only the new MacBook Pro featuring the M5 chip launched this fall, sales growth will likely cool compared to last year’s hardware wave.
Parekh’s comments also imply that Apple doesn’t plan to update other Macs—like the Mac mini or iMac—before year’s end, dashing hopes of any surprise November announcements.
Bar chart shows Mac quarterly revenue from Q4 2017 to Q4 2025, with notable peaks in Q4 2021 and Q4 2022.
Looking ahead, Apple is expected to roll out the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips for the remaining MacBook Pro models in the spring, alongside an M5-powered MacBook Air. Those launches should help Mac sales rebound in Q2 2026, setting up another strong quarter—followed, inevitably, by another “tough compare” story a year later.
Investors tend to focus on year-over-year performance, but that metric often falls short for products that don’t follow an annual release cycle. Since Apple doesn’t disclose individual product sales, analysts have little choice but to rely on these comparisons to gauge how each Mac generation is performing.
