Apple has been destroying PC sales, that’s not counting the red-hot iPad. Depending on which analyst you listen to, the Cupertino, Calif. company for the past 22 quarters has seen growth either 20 times or 80 times faster than the PC industry.
According to researcher Gartner, “Apple experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors in the U.S. PC market. Apple’s PC shipments increased 21.5 percent in the third quarter of 2011.” Leading the way: the “robust growth” of the MacBook Air, which rivals just can’t seem to duplicate, despite all the noise coming from backers of Intel’s Untrabook PC platform.
It appears talk of the iPad cannibalizing PC sales is real. Tablets, such as the iPad “took consumers’ spending away from PCs,” according to Gartner. Rival research firm IDC, which reported Apple’s lead over PC at 80-to-1, even calls this “iPad cannibalization.”
However, neither research firm considers the iPad a PC, giving Apple either 12.9 percent or 11.3 percent of the U.S. market, according to Gartner or IDC. HP is still the No. 1 U.S. PC maker with 28.6 percent of the market, followed by Dell’s 21.9 percent.
