PCs Not Going Away But Tablets Is Where Future of Mobile Computing Is At; Change Over Has Started

For those who still doesn’t get what’s going on, consider this.  The iPads alone have pretty much vanquished the netbooks and really put a hurt on companies likes Acer that had relied on netbook shipments to pad their PC sales numbers.

According to ABI Research, 7.3 million netbooks “shipped”, not sold.  On the other hand, 13.6 million tablets were “shipped”.  Again, not all of it sold.  As you can see, the volume of tablets shipped doubted that of the netbooks.  And while many research firms refused to face this facts, this started in Q2 of 2010 when the original iPad went on sale.  It’s only now that these firms realized what’s going on.

Even as Acer, which had relied on netbook figures to pad their PC shipments, was going through financial pains, research guys and analysts refused to face the facts.

Now, let’s be clear about something here – iPads alone accounted for a vast majority of that tablet figure.  Of the 13.6 million tablets, about 75% of that were iPads.  This is higher than the 68% figure ABI came up with. Close you might say, right?  Wrong.

Here’s why iPad figures should be high if you want to go with what’s shipped, not just sold.

In Q2, Apple sold 9.25 million iPads.  Sold. Not just shipped.  Now, Apple also ended up with about a couple of weeks of inventory because supplies were so tight.  So, let’s add another million to what Apple has in inventory.  That means Apple both sold and shipped closer to 10.25 million iPads.

Based on this figure, Apple accounted for more than 75% of all tablets shipped in Q2.  And no one really knows what the actual netbook sell-through rate is.  The 9.25 iPads sold could alone have doubled those of actual netbooks sold.

Source:  Boy Genius Report.