Apple shipped over 13.5 million mobile PCs in Q2’11 for 136% Y/Y shipment growth, overtaking HP for the top spot, according to preliminary results from the latest DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report. Nearly 80% of Apple’s mobile PC shipments were iPads, which reached over 10.7 million units, for 107% Y/Y growth. Apple’s total mobile PC shipments (notebook and tablet PCs) were 3.9 million units more than HP’s nearly 9.7 million units for the quarter.
From a category perspective, tablet PCs continue to be the engine of growth for the mobile PC industry. Tablet PC shipments were up nearly 70% Q/Q and over 400% Y/Y with nearly 16.4 million units shipped in Q2’11. Notebook PC shipments were down 2% Q/Q but up 2% Y/Y with nearly 48 million units shipped in Q2’11. A consumer notebook PC adoption slowdown continues to hold back the industry following a 2% Y/Y drop in shipments in Q1’11. Worldwide mobile PC shipments (including notebook and tablet PCs) reached 64.4 million in Q2’11, up 10% Q/Q and 28% Y/Y. Among the top five players, Acer experienced the largest decline in shipment growth. Acer’s shipment growth declined in Q2’11, falling 4% Q/Q and 12% Y/Y.
In the notebook PC category, Samsung and Dell had the fastest shipment growth, up 44% and 33% Y/Y, respectively. Dell was also up Q/Q with 27% shipment growth, as it continues to take advantage of a rebound in commercial market PC shipments. Samsung’s shipments fell 16% Q/Q as it was unable to build off of strong shipment results in EMEA and China. Still Samsung was able to top Q1’11 shipment levels in North America and Asia Pacific.
“Preliminary results show a second consecutive quarter of Y/Y shipment growth rate decline,” said Richard Shim, Senior Analyst for DisplaySearch, in the press release. “While part of the Y/Y decline can be attributed to a strong first half of 2010, the rising tablet PC shipment growth rate begins to point to notebook PC shipment cannibalization.”
Tablet PC shipment results show that even after removing Apple from growth rate calculations, worldwide Y/Y tablet PC shipment growth reached 25%, and shipments of non-Apple tablets reached over 5.6 million units for the quarter.
Table 1: Preliminary Q2’11 Worldwide Top Five Mobile PC Shipment Rankings by Brand (millions)
Source: DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report
MacDailyNews Take: Note to IDC and Gartner: Welcome to reality, courtesy of DisplaySearch.
Count ’em all or don’t count at all!
[Attribution: CNET. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dominick P.” for the heads up.]
They need to start counting all of Apple’s mobile devices! So I ask this, is iPod touch included as well?
If you specialise in diluting your objectivity and accuracy by bending rules of reporting for a buck…..
you break.
IDC and Gartner are the Enderles of business stats.
Mobile PC != Post PC device(s).
It just may seem like it at the moment.
It’s not a question of !=, but C.
Are post PC devices a subset of mobile PCs?
I am guessing that you are saying that they are not.
Yes, I don’t think the Post-PC devices are subsets of mobile PCs, almost the other way around, but not quite. Mobile PCs are still PCs that are carrying this early phases of the Post-PC era. I believe, soon, these mobile devices will become more “dumb” appliances. Post-PC work may take place in the cloud, remotely, or even locally but invisibly (invisible/shielded not just from the users but also from the devices themselves, a virus/hack free sandbox).
I obviously don’t have Steve Jobs/Apple’s vision, but that’s how I see it. Right now, Post-PC is on the iDevices, and what’s really taking place in the background is the conquest of iOS. But I think, iOS also will give way, as I’m not sure Post-PC is just about another “proprietary” OS platform. I don’t have the answer, these are the hunches, and I hope to stick around till the year 2021 to look back with a fond hindsight.
One thing that all of these numbers will always report, which may skew things away from Apple is that they report devices shipped. As we have heard many times recently, device sell-through rates tend to be noticeably lower than devices shipped into the channel.
In other words, while Apple’s inventory is rarely more than a week or two, competitors seem to be sitting on 6-10 weeks of inventory. With such stark inventory difference, those numbers don’t show the complete picture.
Predrag noting “Apple’s inventory is rarely more than a week or two, competitors seem to be sitting on 6-10 weeks of inventory.”
My view as I’ve seen it at Staples with the HP TouchPad is that “they” are sleeping on their inventory. I’ve not seen one person touch the TouchPad, which is a very bad sign for HP.
And, HP bolted down the TouchPad with 4 heavy stainless steel arms to keep the TouchPad in place and I’m thinking that was a serious mistake as it keeps people from handling the device. Apple doesn’t do that.
Who would blame them for bolting down those stainless steel arms? You wouldn’t want them to go missing. After all, the display equipment is far more valuable than the merchandise…
Who in their right mind would want to cart away an HP TouchPad off the display shelf? An iPad-hater masochist?
Apple is usually aiming for 3 to 4 weeks of channel inventory (slightly more for iPod), not 1 week. Also, if you think about it, channel fill only has a distorting effect on stats while you’re growing (or trying to grow). In this case, HP is not growing at all and they’re weren’t really trying either (before the Touchpad one month later), so their “shipped” will equal their “sold through”, unlike Apple which grew a lot and therefore had to increase channel inventory.
In fact, in the quarter we’re in Apple is massively increasing channel inventory which ad we know was really bad (eg Apple Store shipping delay went down from 2 weeks to 1 day). Whatever they report in October (8, 10, 12 million)—at least 2 million of those will be pure channel fill.
Apple targets 4 to 6 weeks of channel inventory.
For example, from the last earnings conference call:
“We ended the quarter with about 5.9 million iPhones in channel inventory, a sequential increase of about 700,000 to support strong iPhone demand, carrier addition and expanded distribution. We remained within our target range of 4 to 6 weeks of iPhone channel inventory.”
There, Oppenheimer said it, TARGET range of 4 to 6 weeks.
For the iPod he said, “We ended the quarter within our target range of 4 to 6 weeks of iPod channel inventory.”
Again TARGET range of 4 to 6 weeks.
And, for the iPad, Oppenheimer said: “We ended the quarter with about 1.05 million iPads in channel inventory, a sequential increase of about 200,000, which was well below our target range of 4 to 6 weeks.”
Again, TARGET range of 4 to 6 weeks.
Anyone who has listened to more than one conference call KNOWS that the target range is always 4 to 6 weeks. Apple may end up below that range from time2time, but the target is always 4 to 6 weeks.
As for Macs, this is what Oppenheimer said, ” We began to enter the quarter with between 3 and 4 weeks of Mac channel inventory.”
Note, Oppenheimer does not say the word “target” as this is below the target range.
Unless Oppenheimer mentions “sell-thru” rates, one should adjust the shipment figure by whether Apple ended up or down in channel inventory. For example, since Apple ended a little low in Mac channel inventory, that means it sold more than it shipped.
I’d like to add, that since the iPad had channel inventory of 1.05M, and that is below the target range, one might ask what is the target range. Since demand is over 9.2M a quarter, one can assume the target range has to be over 3M to 5M a quarter. In other words, Apple has to add 2M to 4M iPads just to fill the channel, still. So, even if sales this quarter are 10M, to reach supply-demand equilibrium Apple would still need to ship 12M to 14M, so one should continue to expect upside surprises for iPads as long as channel inventory is low.
There is no tablet market, just an iPad market.
This site needs a “vote up” button so I can give your comment a vote up!
iPad up, netbooks down. Done, simple.
“Tablet PC shipment results show that even after removing Apple from growth rate calculations, worldwide Y/Y tablet PC shipment growth reached 25%, and shipments of non-Apple tablets reached over 5.6 million units for the quarter.”
Yes, and how many of those 5.6M units shipped were sold?
HP to EXIT PC HARDWARE BUSINESS
HP with crap tablet and slow PC sales compared to Apple is exiting the hardware business by spinning off PC hardware. They will become strictly a software company.
August 2011