iPads propel Apple to PC market top slot
Client computer market would have shrunk without tablets
Apple is now the world's leading personal computer seller, having pushed past HP in Q4 2011, market watcher Canalys said today.
Apple shipped 15m iPads and 5m Macs - 20m units that together amount to 17 per cent of the 120m PCs that shipped around the globe during the final three months of 2011.
Take the iPads out of the equation and Apple's ranking is less impressive, but then you'd also have to exclude the 16 per cent unit shipments growth the PC market as a whole experienced during the quarter.
Exclude iPads and other tablets and the PC market contracted by 0.4 per cent, Canalys said.
Tablets accounted for 22 per cent of PC shipments during Q4 2011. Not just the iPad: Amazon's Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook boosted fondleslab sales in the States.
iPad included, Apple's shipments rose six per cent year on year. Lenovo saw its shipments rise too, by two percentage points, its purchase of Germany's Medion boosting sales in Europe.
No other top-five vendor increase their sales: second-placed HP, fourth-placed Dell and fifth-placed Acer all lost market share. ®
COMMENTS
When your Prime has more cores, at higher clocks, faster video and running similar resolution to a soon-to-be-obsolete desktop, then yes...I don't see why it can't be included.
No video editing? No graphics retouching? These are your criteria of a PC? Isn't that a wee bit...specific?
And the definition of a "Personal Computer"...chances are the tablet is ironically more personal, as its usually only used by you...a desktop is often shared - both in personal and business Environments.
Don't get me wrong - I do agree with you - something doesn't seem quite right to include tablets in the PC bracket, but I won't argue against anyone who wants to.
Yet
People seem to be buying them instead of a PC. Maybe most people don't need the extra grunt, and just need a computing device that is, well, personal.
@ g e
yeah, but Joe Punter wasn't doing anything before either...he was still using Facebook, email, IM & youtube when he had a PC.
Except now with a tablet it doesn't take 2-3 minutes to boot up, and you don't need to be sitting at the desk in the spare room to use it. It's also comfier than sitting with a laptop on your knee in the living room.
Face it; PC's and tablets have more power than the average user needs 95% of the time. It just so happens that a tablet is a more practical form for lounging on the Sofa with.
Fiar point ...
... but how many people actually do serious computing and/or game playing? Not most, and given how many PCs are purchased annually by businesses, there won't be many doing a lot of serious computing or game-playing on those.
Most people ...
Most people I know only use their home PCs for email, viewing photos and very simple word/number documents. iPads would suit them better.
