Apple overtakes HP PC shipments as iPad dominates the market

As if Apple wasn't successful enough analyst firm Canalys has now revealed the firm has overtaken HP to become the world's number one PC vendor, although only if you class an iPad as a PC.

The figures show that Apple shifted five million Macs and 15 million iPad devices; and this inclusion of tablet sales skews the figures hugely in favour of Apple

Nevertheless, Canalys noted that Macs and iPads represented 17 per cent of the total 120 million PCs shipped globally in fourth quarter 2011.

Overall, the PC market, including desktops, netbooks, notebooks and tablets grew 16 per cent year-on-year but if tablet are excluded from calculations, PC sales actually fell 0.4 per cent during the last quarter.

This tough market for PC vendors was shown by the fact only Lenovo managed to increase its performance, with the Chinese firm increasing its market share by two per cent, making ground on HP.

"The vendor's decision to use Android for enterprise and consumer pads gives it a better opportunity than HP to continue gaining market share," Canalys noted.

No other Apple competitor had any success, though, with Acer, Dell and HP all losing market share.

Still, the chaps at Cupertino could have some proper challenges in 2012 as Canalys also predicted that ultrabooks will see moderate adoption during the first half of the year.

"Ultrabooks will finally gain momentum later in the year as price points decline and Intel launches a new line of processors and embarks on an aggressive marketing campaign," said Michael Kauh, a research analyst at Canalys.

However, with the iPad 3 around the corner, this won't save all vendors.

"In the short term though, vendors will experience more pressure in the netbook and notebook segments, especially with Apple's annual iPad refresh approaching," he added.

For Tim Cook and co, already sitting on a cash pile of $100bn, it's just another reason to smile.