Research firm Canalys, which considers the iPad to be a ”computing device” has in its latest report listed Apple as the world’s largest PC Maker. The firm is one of the first in the world to put the tablet under the category of personal computers. I am sure that there are many who would disagree with this classification.
Anyway, while the technicalities of this can be talked at length at a later occasion, this is what the numbers look like.
Apple sold as many as 15 million iPads in the past quarter thereby singlehandedly pushing up the PC market sales by a healthy 16 percent. Also to be noted is the fact that Apple sold over 5 million Macs as well which fall under the “normal” PC category. The overall PC sales (including the iPads) have been pegged at 120 million units. In fact, if the sales of the iPad were removed from the equation, the PC market sees a shrinkage of 0.4 percent.
Apple now has 17 percent of the PC Market as seen by Canalys. HP, which took the top spot from Dell a few years ago, now, lies at a distant second place with just 12.7 percent of the market. Canalys also observes that the arrival of the iPad has literally killed the much touted Netbooks segment which arrived amidst much fanfare back in 2008. In fact, this is considered to be the biggest shift in the PC Industry in the past 20 years according to Steve Brazier, CEO of Canalys.
He also adds that if Amazon, which sold estimated 5 million Kindle Fire tablets in the last quarter too continues its growth could gain entry as a “PC Maker” soon and even upstage established players like HP, Dell and Acer in the months to come.
That said, it is still a matter of speculation whether the iPad or other tablets in general can be categorized as a full-fledged personal computer. What do you think?
