The holidays were good to Apple as it saw a huge surge in iPad shipments worldwide. Combined with notebooks, Apple shipped 10.2 million mobile PCs helping it speed right past HP, who shipped 9.3 million units worldwide in the mobile PC space. This puts Apple and HP at 17.2% and 15.6% of the worldwide marketshare in terms of Q4 shipments, respectively.
It’s not a surprise, either, since the MacBook Air – both the 11-inch and 13-inch versions – also helped boost those notebook sales a bit. The new Apple notebook promises faster boot speeds, much like the iPad, and has served as a primary computer for many people, myself included. And things are only looking up for the iPad-maker, even though Google Android is quickly creeping up in the tablet space:
“While we anticipate increased competition in the tablet PC market later this year with the introduction of Android Honeycomb-based tablets, Apple’s iPad business is complementing a notebook line whose shipments widely exceed the industry average growth rate,” said Richard Shim, Senior Analyst at DisplaySearch. “Apple is currently benefiting from significant and comprehensive growth from both sectors of the mobile PC spectrum, notebooks and tablet PCs. Cannibalization seems limited at this point.”
Things are definitely shaping up in Apple’s favor, though many are curious how the company will fare later without the presence of Steve Jobs. While Jobs is still reportedly very involved in day-to-day activities from his home, it’s known to many that his leadership style involved a lot of walking around at the Apple campus. He was very much a hands-on CEO and nearly everything had to get by him, in one form or another, before executive decisions were made. Hopefully his absence won’t bear a negative impact on the company’s short or long-term future.
Bringing up the rear in the top five are Acer, Dell and Toshiba in third, fourth and fifth place.
[Via: DisplaySearch]