Research firm Canalys said the tablet market boom has bolstered Apple’s position in the IT industry and helped it surge past Hewlett-Packard to establish itself as the world’s largest vendor of personal computers in the fourth quarter.
The research focused on several big tech players vis-a-vis the demand for tablets against PCs on a broad level.
Incidentally, this is the first time that tablets have been included under the category of PCs.
The demand for tablets spurred the PC market to sell 120m computers in the fourth quarter, according to Canalys.
As per the research firm, desktops, laptops, notebooks and tablets – all client PCs -grew by 16% as Apple’s 20m units grabbed the top spot, with 17% market share.
Among the other top vendors, Acer, Dell and HP lost their market share while Lenovo rose two points, compared to Apple’s six-point gain during the same quarter.
Out of the total PCs sold by Apple, there were over 5m Macs and about 15m iPads.
