Comments on: Whoa: Tablet shipments now more than half that of the PC

By: markreynoldsit

markreynoldsit — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 03:44:02 +0000

There are a number of unfortunate confusions in this.

Firstly, the title “Tablet shipments now more than half that of the PC”. Let’s say we make this exactly half. Does this mean that tablets have one half of the PC vs tablet market, or does it mean that tablet sales are half those of PC sales, in which case tablets have one third of the tablet vs PC market, while PC’s have the other two thirds.

I’m deliberately using the phrase “tablet vs PC market” because there are a host of devices that could be considered computing devices, so I’m (and I’m assuming you are too) restricting it to this for the sake of this discussion.

I’m glad that you point out that “We can debate if a tablet should be compared to a PC all day long”. After all, we don’t talk much about the demise of mainframes, valve devices, or copper mesh and ferrite core RAM storage.

Anyone saying that tablets are just another form factor is a way of saying that they *are* just another form of a PC, and *not* that they shouldn’t be considered equal to a PC. (I’m not saying whether they should or shouldn’t, just pointing out the incongruity of combining those two phrases in the same sentence as if they were saying the same thing.

Sure, sale of tablets will increase, and correspondingly it’s likely that sales of PC’s – at least as we have traditionally understood them so far – will decline. You’re right that some people don’t need much more than what a tablet will provide – but there are some for whom this is most certainly NOT the case. You may as well say that most people don’t need large or multi-screen monitors – but some sure do.

By: Pete

Pete — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 00:10:21 +0000

The PC market consumer market will certainly shrink some. For quite a few people PCs were never really something they could use very well… and they have struggled along for years. Tablets fit these very casual users well.

However, the PC market (at least laptops) isn’t going anywhere. There are millions of consumers who need the vastly superior versatility and power of a laptop

By: Pat H

Pat H — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 14:48:23 +0000

Another big advantage of tablets over PCs is the fact that tablets have high resolution cameras built into the back side. With any popular scanner app the tablet can be a portable scanner. Since documents can be scanned and then printed the tablet is a copier too. Many items can be immedialtely captured, formatted as PDF, stored in the cloud or emailed directly. All of this with one familar device and one investment. There is also a tablet accessory that helps improves scan productivity – ScanJig. See ScanJig.com

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:55:30 +0000

Microsoft’s development of the touch-first Windows 8 and Surface tablets support your argument that tablet and PC platforms have merged. Although, I doubt Microsoft’s intention is to dilute its share of the “personal computing devices” market. I suspect it is related more to utilizing its near monopoly of the PC market to entice 3rd party development of apps for the Metro interface, which hopefully will bolster Windows mobile device sales. This is a huge gamble by Microsoft, but do they have any other choice?

By: Sceptical

Sceptical — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:46:45 +0000

How does this IDC report even merit a serious response? How do they get the Amazon Kindle numbers when Amazon pointedly refuses to reveal them? How do they know how many tablets Samsung sold when Samsung stopped releasing unit numbers?

Does IDC even give any kind of description to their methodology?

Why do you buy their reports hook, line, and sinker without even questioning the validity of hocus pocus reports like this? That should be the story.

By: John S. Wilson

John S. Wilson — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:21:33 +0000

Yup, great piece. And to make matters worse, almost every price point has already been picked off by competitors. The only way forward is probably the Surface Pro which is wholly different than anything else on the market. But at that starting price it’s unlikely to move a ton of units, and even if it is successful it will more than likely cannibalize PC sales anyway. So it’s really a lose-lose scenario.

Side note: I hope at some point IDC can start using actual sales. Shipments are really deceiving when some, like Microsoft, only sold about 60% of what they shipped.

By: realjjj

realjjj — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:20:42 +0000

“Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer and Sony”
In Q4 Sony was the 4th phone manufacturer with 9.8 mil units according to IDC data, in tablets they aren’t doing great mostly because of pricing. Their latest tablet does have nice specs and you know that so maybe they do better soon,not that Sony is all that big in PC, they got high prices and they aren’t in top 5, so they are doing better in phones than in PC.
Lenovo just reported 9.3 mil smarfphones (almost all in China) in q4 and that puts them just outside top 5, in front on Nokia , Blackberry, LG , HTC or Motorola.As for tablets they sold 800k units and that’s not too bad if the 5th vendor has 1 mil and M$ has 900k.

No idea what IDC includes in the tablet category here when it comes to Windows, would be nice if they would provide some details on OS share and how they define the tablet.
it seems to be the first time tablets overtake laptops in units shipped in a quarter (they most likely did) and ofc they also overtook desktop shipments.

By: Tobias

Tobias — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:03:27 +0000

counting 7 inch tablets there is little reason not to count big phones like the note 2 and than the numbers are even more impressive. quite sure that pc and notebook sales for private use will decrease fast and mobile os´s will rule soon.