Sales are only declining from the record period they had during the pandemic. That is expected even without recession and ongoing inflation.

When Apple falls most of all its rivals, it still "outstrips" them, lol

With the disappearance of the "middle class" in all countries, Apple also disappears..

Did they expect users to upgrade every year or are they expecting their laptops to only last a year? Both?

The vast majority of those who were going to migrate did so with one of the M1 options which was a significant upgrade from the Intel garbage. There were some who held out to "see what happens" with Apple Silicon and skipped the first generation and waited for M2.

For them, it is a huge upgrade. If you already have an M1, "upgrading" to M2 is pretty pointless since the gains are marginal, and most Mac users realize that.

Given that, it is no wonder their sales are down: the new migrants to Apple Silicon, and those dumb enough to pay for a marginal upgrade to M2, are hardly enough to keep sales up. Probably will see the numbers pick back up when M3 comes out next year.