Huge boost for PC sales thanks to tablets

A report has shown that global PC sales experienced a 19.2% year-on-year increase in the final quarter of 2010.

The report by Canalys identified the enormous contributions new devices such as tablets have had on the market in the past year, a year that saw Apple rise to third place in the PC market table.

Apple enjoyed this rise after shifting 11.5m units in Q4 of 2010; roughly half of those units were iPads.

Canalys’ research paints a rosier picture than the one painted by Gartner and IDC, whose research outlined a slowing of market growth to 3% during 2010. However, the exclusion of tablet devices from Gartner and IDC’s research led to misleading reports.

This exclusion was condemned by Canalys analyst, Daryl Chiam:

“Any argument that a tablet is not a PC is simply out of sync,” he said, “the PC market has always evolved in this way. The two technologies will happily coexist.”

With tablet devices performing well over Christmas, and being joined by a multitude of other slate and hybrid devices in the first quarter of this year, we could be set to experience further growth in the PC market in 2011.

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