HP Surpasses Apple in PC Sales Thanks to iPad Shipment Dip
Canalys has been the only major market research firm that includes tablet shipments in overall PC shipments, which resulted in Apple gaining the top spot in the fourth quarter of last year. But iPad sales in Q1 were not good enough to stay ahead of HP.
According to Canalys, a drop of iPad shipments from 15.8 million to 11.8 million between Q4 2011 and Q1 2012 allowed HP to surpass Apple again by approximately 40,000 units. Canalys noted that tablets showed about 200 percent annual growth in Q1, but esktops and notebooks were climbing as well. The only category that lost was the netbook, which was down 34 percent year over year. The total PC client market, including tablets, was 107 million units in Q1 (up 21 percent from Q1 2011), Canalys said.
"Most of the leading PC vendors have done a reasonable job of offsetting the declines in their netbook shipments over the past year with increased pad business," said Canalys analyst Tom Evans. "Samsung and Lenovo are two that stand out in terms of substantially increasing overall volume, though Asus has performed well too. The challenge is breaking out into the really big volumes to challenge the leaders – Apple and Amazon. So far, only Samsung has shown it can routinely ship more than a million pads a quarter."
Canalys said that tablets make up about 19 percent of all client PC shipments. Netbooks are down to 5 percent.
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Douglas Perry was a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware covering semiconductors, storage technology, quantum computing, and processor power delivery. He has authored several books and is currently an editor for The Oregonian/OregonLive.
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_Cubase_ Why don't we just go ahead and call all iPod's "PCs" while we're at it! Does my scientific calculator count too?Reply -
saintjimmy iPads really SHOULD NOT be counted as PCs. Yes, they're technically computers, but they're far from being in the same realm as desktops and laptops.Reply -
amk-aka-Phantom Rrriiight. You know, I think that an Xbox 360 is MUCH closer to a PC than an iPad, yet for some reason the former doesn't count as one and the latter does. Screw logic! :DReply -
blazorthon A PC is a computer running Windows. Last I checked, Apple does not sell ANY PCs because they don't sell computers running Windows. They sell Mac desktops, Mac notebooks, iPads, iPhones, iPods, etc., but none of these are PCs. HP, on the other hand, sells many PCs, so all they had to do to beat Apple in the amount of PCs shipped is sell a single PC.Reply -
kohvipaus Apple has never sold more "PC's" then any other company out there. First because of the reason what blazorthon said, Apple does not sell a single PC.Reply
Secondly, who the duck is so stupid to count tablets as PC's? Give me a break. -
silverblue On top of that, Apple did their best to differentiate their products from PCs, hence the whole advertising campaign.Reply -
blazorthon kohvipausApple has never sold more "PC's" then any other company out there. First because of the reason what blazorthon said, Apple does not sell a single PC.Secondly, who the duck is so stupid to count tablets as PC's? Give me a break.Reply
Well, technically, some tablets exist that run Windows and can correctly be called a PC because they have a laptop X86 CPU in them. They're a little pricey and heavy, but they are tablets.
I also have to wonder if the Windows 8 ARM/Medfield tablets will count as PCs or not. I think that they should.