iPad is the most popular PC

Apple has become the leading client PC vendor worldwide. That is if you count the iPad as a PC. In Q4 2011, Apple has shipped over 15 million iPads and five millions Macs, which makes up 17% of the total 120 million PC shipped globally.

Researcher Canalys has published recent data on the shipment numbers of Personal Computers (PCs). Apparently, Apple is now the king of PCs, having surpassed long-time leader HP.

So did people suddenly stop buying Windows PC and converted to Mac? Not really, the PC-world as we know it is still non-Apple-ized. But as we know that the world hardly ever stays as we know it, an established differentiation between PCs and Tablets might be outdated. That is at least how Canalys sees it, counting iPad, Kindle Fires and Nook Tablets as PCs. That is at least one of the valid interpretations, as tablets for sure took over some functions that were done by laptops and other PCs before.

A laptop? No, an iPad - inside a Logitech ZAGG case with keyboard.

Market growing due to tablets

So, let's look at the numbers: All in all, 120 million client PCs were shipped globally from October to December 2011. Including desktops, netbooks, notebooks, and pads about 16% more devices were sold in a year-on-year-comparison. If one would exclude tablets from the statistics, the market would have even shrunk a tiny bit (-0.4%).

That is due to the fact that pads account for 22% of total PC shipments by now. (15 million iPads were shipped in Q4 alone.) Similarly as notebooks partly replaced desktops, pads are partly replacing notebooks. While a lot of people might get both, others will decide for just one.

Apple seems not to be the only profiteer of that trend, with Amazon just having announced that Amazon’s Kindle sales, which include the Android-powered Kindle Fire, increased 177 per cent year-on-year.

Tablets & ecosystems important 

Although Canalys also sees a long term potential in light Ultrabooks, it also underlines the importance for manufacturers to be strong in terms of tablets. This also means offering a reasonable monetisation through contents - produced by editors, developers and people in related areas.

Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling puts it this way: "This year will be a pivotal year for those vendors that were slow to launch pads. It is not just the product that they need to get right, business models are equally important - driving revenues from content delivery can help vendors reach lower price points in a market that is incredibly price sensitive."

See also:
39%: Android catching up on iOS in tablet shipments
3 billion: One out of five iOS downloads was an iPad app
Ovum: Android will replace iOS as the most important platform to developers