Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Mac desktops and laptops might command a small market share of the global market for PCs, but the iPhone maker leads the Windows-based PCs shipped worldwide if all computers (iPhones, iPads, etc.) are taken in to consideration, for the fourth quarter of 2013. Including iPhones, iPads, etc., on which people actually get things done; the number of computers sold by Apple exceeds its Windows counterparts.
Is the comparison valid?
According to Andreessen Horowitz mobile analyst Benedict Evans, this is a good instance of the scale of mobile. Though Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) makes only the high-end devices it succeeded in selling more units than the whole PC industry.
Some analysts can neglect these comparison altogether by asking how one can compare the iPhone and iPad with the number of Windows PCs sold worldwide when these are somewhat arbitrary device categories.
Others can, however, argue that the consumers today on a large basis are porting their PC works on other devices, and all of them are mobile. This trend will most likely increase in the future.
Earlier, in January, a report from Horace Dediu of Asymco said that the total number of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) devices sold would equal to the number of Windows PC at some point of time this year. In the analysis, Dediu wrote that there were only 1.18 more Windows PCs than Apple devices. However, the comparison is not very apt as the analyst has included iPhones, but excluded Windows Phone and tablets. However, the number of Windows mobile devices to date has been very low, which would not affect the comparison very much.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) saw an increase in its U.S. PC market share from 9.9% to 13.7% year over year for the holiday quarter, according to report released by Gartner. Apple has sold a higher number of Macs, eating into the market share of HP and Toshiba. Apart from Apple Mac, only Dell and Lenovo saw a substantial rise in market share.
In the United States, PC shipments accounted 15.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013, a decline of 7.5% from the fourth quarter of 2012. HP was the number one vendor in the United States accounting for 26.5% of shipments. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been witnessing a substantial increase in its market share over the past seven years rising from just under 5% to the current 13.7%.
