What Happens If You Count Tablets as PCs?

You get Apple as the world’s number one PC maker.

(We have to take these numbers as ballpark estimates, of course, because companies like Samsung and Amazon do not report sales numbers. Analysts have to estimate them. This report is from Canalys, and they peg Amazon’s Kindle tablet sales at 4.6 million for last quarter. But here’s a report from IDC covering the exact same quarter, claiming 6.0 million tablets for Amazon. A million or two tablets here or there isn’t that big a deal to Apple, because they’re selling around 20 million iPads per quarter, but it’s a significant difference for companies like Samsung or Amazon, who are (seemingly) selling single-digit millions per quarter. But, no matter how loose these estimates are, if tablets are counted as PCs, there is no debate that Apple is number one by a long shot.)

★ Thursday, 7 February 2013