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A few years ago, research firm Canalys decided that tablets should be considered PCs instead of fitting into some other mobile device category, or being separate from everyone else entirely. Because of that, Apple skyrocketed to become the number one PC seller in the world. This year, thanks to a decline in traditional PC sales, the iPad helped the category maintain growth that would have otherwise not existed in fourth quarter of 2013.
According to the company’s recent PC shipment research for the fourth quarter of 2013, tablet sales accounted for nearly 50 percent of PC sales, a growth of 65.2 percent from the same quarter last year. Without tablet sales, the PC market declined by 6.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012.
Apple maintained its leadership over the rest of the top five PC makers shipping 30.9 units and capturing 19.5 percent of the market share. If you take the iPad out of the equation, Apple would have only sold 4.9 million PCs, which would put it under the top five list.
According to Canalys’ data, Apple’s overall tablet market share increased from 27.3 percent to 34.1 percent from the third quarter of 2013 to the fourth. The launch of the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, which took place during the fourth quarter, accounts for much of the increase in tablet sales for Apple.
Samsung, Apple’s biggest competitor in the tablet market, came in third place in PC sales under Canalys’ report. The company shipped 18.2 million units during the fourth quarter of 2013, up 90 percent from the same quarter in 2013. Tablets accounted for 79.7 percent of Samsung’s PC sales at approximately 14.5 million units.
Samsung and Apple dominate the tablet market with 53.2 percent of all tablet shipment for the quarter.
Canalys’ research shows that tablets are definitely taking over as the household-computing device. Before long, desktops and laptops will be a thing of the past when it comes to at-home computers.
[Via: TechCrunch]
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