IDC published Q1 shipment estimates last week for the top five PC makers -- dubbed OEMs for "original equipment manufacturers -- but unlike the previous period, Apple did not make the cut, outdone by the likes of Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Asus.
Today, IDC research analyst Rajani Singh disclosed her firm's Apple preliminary estimate as 4.45 million Macs, several hundred thousand less than the fifth-place Asus' 4.8 million.
IDC's 4.45 million for Apple, however, would be an increase of almost 8% over the same period of 2014, when the Cupertino, Calif. company sold 4.13 million Macs. The researcher's Q1 bet would account for about 6.5% of all personal computers.
Apple did not release any new Macs in the January-March quarter, although it did begin selling the 12-in. Retina MacBook this month.
If IDC's forecast turns out accurate, it would mean Mac sales again outpaced those of the PC industry as a whole: The research firm said that global shipments were down almost 7% in Q1 compared to the same three-month stretch the year before, with the biggest drop in the catch-all "Others" category.
Of the March quarter's top five OEMs, HP, Lenovo and Asus posted gains between 3.3% and 4.4%, said IDC, while Dell and Acer declined 6.3% and 7%, respectively.
IDC came close to nailing Apple's number last quarter, erring on the high side. In January, it forecast 5.75 million Macs for 2014's Q4, or 4% higher than the record 5.52 million Apple booked for the period.
According to Singh, Mac sales were flat, more or less, in the U.S. and Japan last quarter, but strong -- and up -- in China and Western Europe. Mac shipments grew just 2% in the U.S., for example. "Apple won't do super great relative to its peers in the U.S.," said Singh, pointing out that IDC's estimates had HP's domestic shipments up nearly 10% and Lenovo's up almost 9%.
Brian White, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald, was more bullish on Mac sales: His forecast pegged worldwide Q1 sales at 4.7 million, or a 13% increase over the year prior.
Apple will reveal first-quarter Mac sales on April 27, when it holds its next earnings call.