Back in May, the research firm IDC began to class iPads and other portable devices as PCs. By classifying iPads as PCs, a new report now suggests that Apple will become the leading portable PC vendor in 2012, surpassing HP.
The report, which comes to us from Digitimes, suggests that global tablet PC shipments are expected to exceed 80 million units, with Apple expected to produce 60 million of those units themselves. In addition, Apple is also expected to ship 15 million MacBooks in 2012, bringing their grand total of portable “PCs” up to 75 million, which accounts for between 25-30% of the entire market.
HP, by contrast, is expected to produce a grand total of 45-50 million “portable PCs” this year, and it’s projected that they likely won’t be able to reach or surpass Apple’s 75-million unit mark. This, however, does not figure in sales of HP’s just-released TouchPad tablet.
To some extent I wonder if it’s really fair to lump in the iPad with portable PCs – The iPad can do a lot, but in my opinion, there’s still a lot of ways in which it separates itself from PCs – and considering that HP ships far more actual notebook computers than Apple, I’m a bit concerned as to the fairness of this assessment.
Your thoughts? Sound off in the comments!
