Apple Dominates PC Market By Destroying It

Apple has proclaimed for a long time that we are now in a post-PC era, in which people would no longer need traditional PCs and instead engage themselves with the digital world through iPhones and iPads. This theory seems to have gained strength as indicated by a recent report from Canalys.

According to the report, Apple has now become the largest global PC player and surpassed Hewlett-Packard to take the top spot. [1] Lenovo was the only other player to have gained market share in this market, while Dell and Acer lost considerable market share.

Our $550 price estimate for Apple stock is about 20% above market price.

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iPad lifting the whole PC market

The PC market, as termed by Canalys, not only includes the traditional desktops and laptops, but also the tablet PCs. Tablets helped PC market reach 120 million units in Q4 2011, a growth of 16% over Q4 2010. Apple shipped over 15 million iPads in Q4 2011, which helped it increase its share to 17% of the total PC market. If we exclude the tablets from the equation, the PC market actually experienced a decline of 0.4%.

Mac also helping Apple gain market share

A few weeks back, IDC came out with the U.S. PC market (excluding tablets) report in which it mentioned that the U.S. PC market declined for the first time in a decade last year hurt by a soft economy, supply shortages and the popularity of smartphones and tablets. [2]

The recent floods in Thailand resulted in a supply shortage of hard disk drives used in PCs. However, Apple saw 21% growth in Mac sales in the U.S. market compared to the year ago quarter, pushing past Toshiba and Acer to take the #3 spot behind HP and Dell.