Tablets continue to 'cannibalise' the PC market

Latest IHS iSuppli figures still predict market growth in 2011, despite Q1 drop

Three of the top five PC vendors saw sales slide in the first quarter of 2011 as tablets continue to gobble up market share.

According to analyst IHS iSuppli, global PC shipments hit 81.3 million units in Q1 2011, a 0.3 per cent drop on the 81.6 million units shipped during Q1 2010.

Acer, which is holding onto third place in the market, saw the biggest drop, plunging 20.4 per cent to 9.2 million units. ISuppli attributed this to the high proportion of netbook-style PCs it sells, which are being battered by tablet sales.

HP also saw sales drop by 2.1 per cent but held onto the top spot with 19.1 per cent market share and Dell clung onto second place with 12.9 per cent share. The other top five vendors – Lenovo and Toshiba – saw an increase in shipments, achieving market share positions of 10 per cent and 5.8 per cent respectively.

Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platform research at IHS, said: “The increasing momentum of the media tablet market, led by the iPad, is creating a difficult environment for the PC industry. All the attention surrounding tablets contributed to weak consumer demand for PCs in the first quarter.

“IHS believes that the jury is still out on exactly how much tablets are cannibalising PC sales,” he said. “However, the rising number of tablet models on the market, along with certain high-profile product launches during Q1, caused confusion among consumers as to exactly how to view the tablet platform relative to the PC platform. This contributed to the PC sales decline in the first quarter.”

However, the analyst predicted that PC sales growth should return later in the year, with the market growing eight per cent to 373 million units, up from 345 million in 2010. This is compared with 14 per cent growth in 2010.