“Apple’s iMac occupies a prized place in a fast-growing segment of the overall desktop PC market, the all-in-ones, that few others can approach,” Darrell Etherington reports for GigaOM. “That’s how Apple can continue to show growth in an area where sales are slowing for other competitors, and it managed that advantage by being there early. Like the iMac before it, the MacBook Air is Apple’s next perfectly placed and timed attack on the competition.”

Etherington reports, ” According to DisplaySearch, as reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday, the iMac accounts for 32.9 percent of the all-in-one desktop market, which itself grew 39 percent over the course of 2011 to 14.5 million shipments worldwide. DisplaySearch believes that the market will reach 23.3 million units by 2014, and Apple looks likely to lead the pack, since its next-closest competitor is Lenovo, with 22.7 percent of all-in-one sales… Now Intel is prompting other notebook manufacturers to jump in late and try to capitalize on the demand for ultraportables. CES pitches are littered with the term, and it seems like every PC maker is planning an Air-like notebook for release in the near term. But the iMac’s doppelgängers haven’t managed to dethrone it, and I highly doubt we will see the notebook market behave very differently.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Edward Weber" for the heads up.]

Related articles:
J.P. Morgan: Apple’s MacBook Air to dominate ultrabook market – December 12, 2011
‘Ultrabook’ manufacturers look to plastic as Apple commandeers unibody aluminum supplies – November 21, 2011
Windows laptop makers can’t catch up to Apple’s revolutionary MacBook Air – August 14, 2011