iPad may make Apple world's largest PC maker in holiday Q4 2011

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Apple's fiscal Q4 iPad shipments in the September quarter were enough to propel the Mac maker into a near tie in unit sales with global PC maker HP. When Apple releases figures for the final quarter of 2011 later this month, it may become the world's largest PC maker.



After Fortune published a graphic showing the huge impact of Apple's iPad sales on PC market share, Sebastian Peitsch of German blog Apple Outsider painstakingly researched PC market share figures back through 2008 to offer a corrected version.



His graphic portrays what Garner would have reported since 2010 if the research company weren't artificially excluding the iPad from its PC market share figures, a tactic it suddenly initiated alongside the launch of the iPad after years of including Microsoft's Tablet PCs, UMPCs and other tablets in its official PC numbers.



Gartner is likely to begin counting Windows 8 tablets, some of which are expected to use ARM chips, as PCs out of fealty to the company that has funded much of its research.



Adding iPad sales back to Garner's figures dramatically shows how Apple overtook Lenovo and Dell after just three quarters of iPad sales in its first year, then rebounding the next year with iPad 2 to arrive right on the heels of HP's PC sales in the third calendar quarter of last year.







Macs up, PCs down



Apple is expected to report sales of around 13 million iPads in the fourth quarter and more than 5 million Macs, which may be enough to beat HP and become the world's largest PC maker ahead of schedule.



NPD Group reported last week that consumer electronics sales were down across the board in the US, but specifically noted that desktop PCs were down 2 percent, while notebook sales were down 5 percent. That's in sharp contrast to Apple's rapidly growing sales of iPads and Macs.



Previously, research firm Canalys predicted that Apple would overtake HP to become the top PC maker in the world next year, a conclusion HP's chief executive Meg Whitman agreed with before expressing hopes that HP could win back the title of being the top PC maker in 2013.



Beyond unit sales, Apple already leads the PC market in revenues and profitability. Each Mac and iPad Apple sells impacts the sales of both Microsoft and its PC partners, and in the case of ARM-based iPads, also takes a hit on Intel's chip sales. Intel, Microsoft and their PC partners are hoping that a new crop of Ultrabooks and tablet designs running Windows 8 will lure buyers back to non-Apple PCs.



However, both Intel and Microsoft are reportedly hoping to maintain high component prices for PC makers, a strategy that is likely to keep Windows 8 tablets prices between $599 and $899, the same price that appeared to kill any interest in Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets in 2011.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 82
    Tablets are not PCs. At least not yet. In the future the lines between PC and tablet will blur but right now they are not. My phone does everything my iPad does, is it a PC? Anything to boost numbers. Are all the other manufactures having their tablets counted? They are pretty crappy but I would venture they sold enough to offset Mac sales. Heck, motorcycles cut into automobile sales but that doesnt make a motorcycle a car.
  • Reply 2 of 82
    mcarlingmcarling Posts: 1,106member
    Holiday quarter of 2011 or 2012?
  • Reply 3 of 82
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    Tablets are not PCs. At least not yet. In the future the lines between PC and tablet will blur but right now they are not. My phone does everything my iPad does, is it a PC?



    1) Yes, your phone is technically a personal computer.



    2) Why were notebook considered PCs when they couldn't do everything that a desktop PC could do? Apparently you can have less HW and still be considered a PC.



    (This is where you start thinking of an argument based on the OS used)



    3) So will the Win8 tablets then be PCs, but iOS, Android, et al. won't be PCs? Remember that previous Windows tablets were counted as PCs.
  • Reply 4 of 82
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mcarling View Post


    Holiday quarter of 2011 or 2012?



    It's fiscal quarter Q1 2012 or calendar quarter Q4 2011. I'd choose the latter since it's being compared to the industry.
  • Reply 5 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    1) Yes, your phone is technically a personal computer.



    2) Why were notebook considered PCs when they couldn't do everything that a desktop PC could do? Apparently you can have less HW and still be considered a PC.



    (This is where you start thinking of an argument based on the OS used)



    3) So will the Win8 tablets then be PCs, but iOS, Android, et al. won't be PCs? Remember that previous Windows tablets were counted as PCs.



    I agree, a personal computer is a personal computer but to just use the iPad to artificially inflate Apples numbers is ignorant. The iPhone/smart phone can do everything a tablet can yet phones are not included. Are all the other manufactures tablets also included?
  • Reply 6 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    ... Heck, motorcycles cut into automobile sales but that doesnt make a motorcycle a car.



    This is a really bad analogy.



    Motorcycles do not traditionally "cut into" automobile sales. No one goes out looking for a car and then decides to get a motorcycle instead (or at least very few people do).



    There are however lots of folks who (according to their testimony), went out to get a laptop and instead bought an iPad.



    The whole category of "PC sales" is poorly defined and problematic anyway. If they just said "computers" or "personal computing devices" Apple already leads the world as that would include iPhones and iPods.



    Even the original "PC" definition actually includes Macs even though people still talk about the battle between Macs and PC's.
  • Reply 7 of 82
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Sure we can toss in everyone else's tablet numbers.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    I agree, a personal computer is a personal computer but to just use the iPad to artificially inflate Apples numbers is ignorant. The iPhone/smart phone can do everything a tablet can yet phones are not included. Are all the other manufactures tablets also included?



  • Reply 8 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    I agree, a personal computer is a personal computer but to just use the iPad to artificially inflate Apples numbers is ignorant. The iPhone/smart phone can do everything a tablet can yet phones are not included. Are all the other manufactures tablets also included?



    What can I do with a netbook that I can't do with an iPad and for the most part faster, especially since I now have Onlive and now have access to MS Office apps, not that I couln't have bought the Apple office apps?
  • Reply 9 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post


    This is a really bad analogy.



    Motorcycles do not traditionally "cut into" automobile sales. No one goes out looking for a car and then decides to get a motorcycle instead (or at least very few people do).

    .



    That is just your opinion. I know many people that dumped cars for motorcycles/scooters to save gas, ease of parking and cheaper. The anology is spot on and completely debunks this ignorant article. Just because something cuts into market share does not lump it into that category. You can not simply include the iPad and not the other manufactures tablets. If you include the iPad then you can not ignore smartphones. Computers are computers, tablets are tablets and smartphones are smartphones. Why do "analysts" have to manipulate things? Apple is by far the largest tablet maker, leave it at that.
  • Reply 10 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pridon View Post


    What can I do with a netbook that I can't do with an iPad and for the most part faster, especially since I now have Onlive and now have access to MS Office apps, not that I couln't have bought the Apple office apps?



    Then what can you not do with a smartphone that you can do with an iPad? My whole point is that just using definition alone, many many things now become PCs and should be included.
  • Reply 11 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    Then what can you not do with a smartphone that you can do with an iPad? My whole point is that just using definition alone, many many things now become PCs and should be included.



    Better include those refrigerators that run Android, then.
  • Reply 12 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    Sure we can toss in everyone else's tablet numbers.



    Tablets and smartphones. Problem is then everything is lumped together making the figures muddy at best. Seems like all these analysts are desperate to make apple the number one pc manufacture no matter what.
  • Reply 13 of 82
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    I agree, a personal computer is a personal computer but to just use the iPad to artificially inflate Apples numbers is ignorant. The iPhone/smart phone can do everything a tablet can yet phones are not included. Are all the other manufactures tablets also included?



    I agree with you here. A smartphone shouldn't be called a PC categorically because it's already considered a smartphone. But a tablet was considered a PC up until Apple announced the iPad. It got categorically demoted because it didn't use a standard desktop OS (and to a lesser extent didn't try to replicate every port you find on a notebook PC, but that is only needed to back up the primary reason). If the iPad had been released with Mac OS X as is like all previously released Windows tablets I am sure it would be counted with PC sales without question.



    Really it comes down to categorization and organization. Do you count every tablet on the market or ones that are a minimum size? Surely we wouldn't count Acer advertising "The world's smallest tablet" with a 1" 16:9 display (if they were foolish enough to do that)? Yet we counted netbooks which couldn't run every app people thought because of the anemic HW and those that could technically run the experience was too poor to make it a good solution. So Apple and others are pushed from the kingdom because they have idealized the OS for the HW just as Apple does for Mac OS X and Macs.



    I personally don't care that they don't count the iPad so long as they don't count any other tablet and explain how they determined the classification. Remember when Jobs stated Apple makes more mobile devices than any other CE vendor when he added the Mac notebooks. He qualified it. He explained it. They are certainly mobile, aren't they.



    PS: By definition motorcycles are automobiles, but they are not cars. Your argument is like saying Macs are PCs therefore all PCs are Macs. Surely you know that a logical fallacy.
  • Reply 14 of 82
    You gotta love conspiracy theories. They can't be disproved so they must be right.



    Nobody who cares about anything important spends a single second worrying about whether tablets are classified as PCs.
  • Reply 15 of 82
    pokepoke Posts: 506member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    That is just your opinion. I know many people that dumped cars for motorcycles/scooters to save gas, ease of parking and cheaper. The anology is spot on and completely debunks this ignorant article. Just because something cuts into market share does not lump it into that category. You can not simply include the iPad and not the other manufactures tablets. If you include the iPad then you can not ignore smartphones. Computers are computers, tablets are tablets and smartphones are smartphones. Why do "analysts" have to manipulate things? Apple is by far the largest tablet maker, leave it at that.



    The analogy is not "spot on." You chose motorcycles because they're obviously not compared to cars. Why not make an analogy with smaller cars or electric cars, which would be included? It's completely arbitrary.
  • Reply 16 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    I agree with you here. A smartphone shouldn't be called a PC categorically because it's already considered a smartphone. But a tablet was considered a PC up until Apple announced the iPad. It got categorically demoted because it didn't use a standard desktop OS (and to a lesser extent didn't try to replicate every port you find on a notebook PC, but that is only needed to back up the primary reason). If the iPad had been released with Mac OS X as is like all previously released Windows tablets I am sure it would be counted with PC sales without question.



    Really it comes down to categorization and organization. Do you count every tablet on the market or ones that are a minimum size? Surely we wouldn't count Acer advertising "The world's smallest tablet" with a 1" 16:9 display (if they were foolish enough to do that)? Yet we counted netbooks which couldn't run every app people thought because of the anemic HW and those that could technically run the experience was too poor to make it a good solution. So Apple and others are pushed from the kingdom because they have idealized the OS for the HW just as Apple does for Mac OS X and Macs.



    I personally don't care that they don't count the iPad so long as they don't count any other tablet and explain how they determined the classification.





    PS: By definition motorcycles are automobiles, but they are not cars. Your argument is like saying Macs are PCs therefore all PCs are Macs. Surely you know that a logical fallacy.





    So OS? Problem is he phone/tablet OS has merged iOS 5 and Android ICS bringing phones and tablets even closer. A PC is well defined and a physical keyboard seems to be the key. Sure you can hook a keyboard up to a tablet but you do not have too. As I stated before why can a PC be a PC a Tablet a Tablet ect....... Because then Apple is not number one at something and hat hurts people's feelings.



    Yes I used automobile loosely but a motorcycle is not a car, they have their own categories and cut into each others market share.
  • Reply 17 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by poke View Post


    The analogy is not "spot on." You chose motorcycles because they're obviously not compared to cars. Why not make an analogy with smaller cars or electric cars, which would be included? It's completely arbitrary.



    Making it spot on. An anology is supposed to show difference, exaggerated difference. As my anology did.
  • Reply 18 of 82
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    A PC is well defined and a physical keyboard seems to be the key.



    And yet prior to the iPad tablets were lumped in with PCs.



    It really doesn't matter since tablets weren't as popular this year at CES and Windows has a very small window to make a dent in the tablet market they were in for the past ≈20 years.



    If Apple releases an iPad with a Retina Display (265ppi) then it's no longer a tablet or PC market, it's an iPad market, just like the iPod made the MP3 player or PMP market an iPod market from the user's perspective.
  • Reply 19 of 82
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    When PC was created in the 80s, it was used mainly to create content. Therefore, we can define a device as PC if it is mainly used to create content. For many users, they seldom use PC to create content. Although iPhone can be used to create content, its main usage is not. In this aspect, iPad is better than iPhone.
  • Reply 20 of 82
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellacool View Post


    Making it spot on. An anology is supposed to show difference, exaggerated difference. As my anology did.



    i wonder why you are not banned. every single post made by you = garbage, really.



    how does it hurt people feelings? fact is macs and iPads are growing in numbers really fast while the others are going down.. even this fact is not important.



    what is important is that for pretty much anyone that can afford them, mac = best computer, iPad = best tablet, iPhone = best smartphone. and if you put them together apple = close to perfect ecosystem. Sir, this is what hurts feelings from "people" like you. what are you doing here?
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