Apple’s iPad is clearly cannibalizing PC sales

“Although Mac shipments grew faster than the overall PC market in calendar Q3 for the 25th quarter in a row, Needham’s Charlie Wolf sees cause for concern in latest data,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.

In his regular quarterly review of Apple’s (AAPL) Mac business, he notes:
• The difference in Mac vs. PC growth rates — up 1.9% for the Mac compared with down 2.5% for all PCs, including Macs — is smaller than in previous quarters

• Mac shipments to education fell 0.1% while overall PC sales to schools fell nearly 13.9% — the first definitive evidence, Wolf writes, that the iPad is cannibalizing PC sales in the U.S. (Apple sold nearly 1 million iPads to U.S. schools in the quarter.)

• Overall PC shipments to the home rose 1.1% worldwide in Q3 while Mac shipments to the home fell 4.6%, an outsized decline Wolf attributes to delays in the Mac upgrade cycle.

• The best news for the Mac: It continues to thrive in the business market. Mac units grew 56.6% in the U.S. even as overall PC sales fell 8.8%s. Worldwide, Mac business shipments increased 22.1% compared with a 4.5% decline in overall business sales.

More info, including four of Wolf’s charts, in the full article here.

14 Comments

    1. In related news, scientists fear an outbreak of an epidemic known only as “Internet Tourette’s.”

      “It’s a baffling disease,” said Dr. Goodwrench. ‘Perfectly normal people suddenly start spouting complete and utter gibberish for no apparent reason. It’s clear that they, themselves, think that they are making sense, but their sentences are disjointed, logic non-existent and they seem to jump from topic to topic with no regard for context or continuity or common sense.”

      The Centers for Disease Control are taking a long hard look at the matter. “It’s a serious problem,” said Israeli professor Telly Prompter. “It appears that when certain key words like ‘Apple,’ ‘Jobs’ or ‘patents’ are uttered, those afflicted with this debilitating ailment simply lose touch with reality and start to mindlessly ramble on and on and on about unrelated matters. It’s similar to a psychotic break — only it’s a lot more boring.”

      “There’s only one known cure for Internet Tourette’s,” opined government guru, Manny Petty. “Step away from the keyboard and shut down your computer. Just. Step. Away.”

      For victims of Internet Tourette’s, like Ton and the millions of other sufferers like him, that is good advice. Very good advice indeed.

      1. What’s even more interesting is the fact that he had time to conceptualize his thoughts before he typed them. Imagine the verbal diarrhea that spills forth in a actual conversation.:)

        1. You wouldn’t even understand it. My native language is Dutch. I do know cannibal from cannabis too… 🙂 ( and that an n should be added to the a before actual) sorry for all the other mistakes introduced by me or the Dutch spell checker.

      2. qka obviously suffers from what he writes, seeing as it “rambles on and on” for 10 times the length of the post he replied to, which pointed out–correctly, and quite concisely–that iPad can only “cannibalize” sales of other Apple products.

      3. i thought the point was clear enough:

        On the Apple sude, if you are eating your own, your product may be cannibalized, but you’re the one doing the eating.

        On the PC, someone else is eating you. There’s no silver lining.

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