The latest survey of connected intelligent devices from IDC has revealed what we were all beginning to suspect – the day of the PC has gone, while tablets and smartphones continue their inexorable ascent.
The survey covers PCs, notebooks and smartphones.
IDC thinks that shipments of tablets will exceed desktop PCs in 2013 and topple notebook PCs next year. The tablet market is expected to grow year on year by 48.7 percent, representing 190 million units, and the smartphone market will grow 27.2 percent to 918.5 million units.
Apple did better than expected in the fourth quarter of 2012, closing the gap with Samsung. That’s because of sales of the Apple iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini, meaning that Apple had 20.3 percent unit shipment market share compared to 21.2 percent for Samsung. However, from a revenue point of view, Apple had 30.7 share compared to 20.4 percent for Samsung. In short, Apple kit is more expensive.
During the rest of the decade, tablets and smartphone sales will continue to rise, as they are taken up by emerging markets. Notebook PCs will only show single digit growth and desktop PCs will continue to fall. By 2017, desktop PCs will show practically no growth.
Megha Saini, IDC research analyst, said that in emerging markets in particular, consumer spending starts with mobiles but move directly to tablets before they think about PCs.
