What would happen if tablets were counted as PCs? According to Meg Whitman, CEO of the worlds largest PC manufacturer HP, Apple would overtake them in 2012. While responding to questions from French newspaper Le Figaro, Meg Whitman had the following to say about Apple overtaking HP in PC sales:
Yes. I think it’s possible if you integrate tablets. Apple does a great job. We need to improve our game and our products to take over the leadership position. Apple could go past HP in 2012. We will try to become the champion in 2013. It takes time for the products on which I have come to influence the market.
As tablets continue to cannibalize netbook sales, it only makes sense to consider the tablet a PC moving forward. With the uncertainty around the future of HP webOS, I have to wonder what she is hinting at to help HP reclaim the title in 2013.
[Via TechCrunch]
It appears Forrester is bullish on Microsoft Windows 8 tablet prospects:
On tablets, Windows 8 is going to be very late to the party. […] For tablets, though, Windows really isn’t a fast follower. Rather it’s (at best) a fifth-mover after iPad, Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, HP’s now-defunct webOS tablet, and the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. While Windows’ product strategists can learn from these products, other players have come a long way in executing and refining their products — Apple, Samsung, and others have already launched second-generation products and will likely be into their third generation by the time Windows 8 launches.
Does that mean millions of business users won’t give it a shot in tablet form? Probably not, considering many businesses:
- Are usually slow to adopt new versions of Windows
- Stay with Windows for backwards-compatibility and familiarity
What about consumer adoption? What are the chances they will ignore Windows 8 on the tablet because it is late to the party? I don’t believe time is all that important. Take the Kindle Fire for example. Compared to existing tablets—Android based, the BlackBerry PlayBook and HP TouchPad—it was the first to actually garner considerable demand at launch, which was only two-weeks ago. It obviously wasn’t because it was early to the party, but rather because it was desirable, and I believe Windows 8 tablet has the potential to be desirable.
Falling in line with the positive news regarding Kindle Fire sales, iPad 2 also received a significant bump in sales on Black Friday. From AllThingsD:
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster surveyed a few Apple stores on Black Friday and found that iPad sales per hour were 68 percent higher than they were a year ago. On average, the stores Munster visited sold about 14.8 iPads per hour, up from 8.8 iPads per hour last year, more than enough to support the analyst’s projection of 13.5 million iPads sold in the December quarter.
Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore’s analysis is similar to Gene Munster’s, leading him to believe that iPad 2 sales are tracking in line with his estimate of 14 million iPad sales for the December quarter.
Amazon’s newest tablet, the Kindle Fire, helped increase Kindle Family sales by 4x when compared to the same period last year, and was also the best-selling item at Amazon.com on Black Friday. The boost in sales wasn’t exclusive to Amazon’s online market, with both Best Buy and Target reporting increased demand for the new tablet. From The Next Web:
Nik Nayar, vice president merchandising at Target said that the Kindle Fire was so popular, sales of the device outperformed all other Android devices at its stores: “This was a great Black Friday for Target and for Kindle Fire, which was the bestselling tablet in our stores on Black Friday”
If you are wondering how many Kindle Fires were sold, Amazon will most likely let you down. Not because the number is low, but because they refrain from releasing sales figures. What we do know is that the number before Black Friday was in the millions, with unofficial 2011 sales estimated at five million.
