News Gartner records PC market growth in Europe, US

It's a pity they couldn't separate the Windows tablets, to give us a better feel for PC sales growth.

I'd agree though - I like my tablet for a spot of sofa surfing, reading books, light gaming and occasionally streaming to my Chromecast but, despite have a full office suite on there, I don't use it for any productivity. My PC only takes 15 - 20 seconds to boot up, and I can work much faster with a mouse and keyboard than fingering away at a spreadsheet on a tablet.

 

Is it just me that thought it was odd to see Apple coming from nowhere to a 14% market share in the US ?
I'm not dissing Apple, I'm just wondering if i have missed something, or if it's an anomaly in the way Gartner segments the PC and Tablet markets.

 

So as predicted when tablets first came to market really - just a fad. There just doesn't seem to be much innovation with them. Year-year the only differences seem to be faster processors, higher resolution and slightly more ram, even the amount of storage in them has not changed. They are no substitute for a proper desktop or laptop PC and I think people are starting to realise that.

 

All tech markets jobs are to sell incremental better products, it's getting people to buy year on year that is the struggle for most companies if your not called Apple. Samsung the king of android is even struggling with this issue.

US market share is very different than world market share. Apple has 42% of the US market at last check but sub 15% of the world market for smartphones. If they sorted by 1st world countries it would be a very different landscape to the world market.

China and India the 2 biggest country's by population are also 2 of the poorest by GPA.

EU market has struggled in laptops but stayed pretty strong in desktops in the last few years compared to US market where it's laptops ahead and desktops behind.

 

Is that Apple market share just PCs ?
I still don't understand how, according to Gartner Apple has a 14% market share in the US. Are Americans into Apple 'PCs' in a big way or something.

Just a wild guess, but maybe that's to do with most people in the EU never being very far from a desktop PC, versus the United States wide open spaces where a PC isn't 5min away.

 

Thats true actually but whereas the PC is a fully usable product I don't think I could claim the same about a tablet, for me the biggest area tablets need work on is the terrible typing experience. I believe last year I read some news that someone somewhere had created a screen layer that could deform itself for different tasks for example bumps for where keyboard letters should be, providing proper tactile feedback.
I guess one could argue that tablets do exactly what they are designed to do, but I feel they do a poor job of most of what they are designed for, even web surfing can be a lesser experience.

Oh and since the Oculus Rift is in the news again today, that is another little piece of innovation for the PC market, I still agree that there hasn't been much in this area either though.