Mercury Research data analyzed by Bernstein shows Apple's laptop market share has reached 18-19%, nearly matching AMD's 21-22%. This comes just five years after Apple began its M1 transition away from Intel, a shift driven by goals of better battery life and macOS optimization.

Intel still leads laptops with over 60% share, but its decline benefits both Apple and AMD. On desktops, Apple holds about 10% of a market long dominated by Intel and AMD, with any Intel losses there flowing directly to AMD as consumers show a clear preference for its chips.

Apple's current M4 family—from the base chip to the M4 Max and M3 Ultra—caters to multiple price points, helping drive this adoption. The company's tight hardware-software integration has made this one of the smoothest processor transitions in the industry.