Apple, the company producing computers, iPods and software until 2007, now makes most of its money from iDevice sales. However, Apple is still a strong player on the PC market, the company having a market share of 9.5%, occupying the 4th place in the top of the largest PC manufacturers. The company ranked 4th due to poor sales of the iPad tablet which is considered by analysts to be a PC, more precisely a PC-tablet.
In addition to Macs, the iPad tablet is included in all the lists where PC manufacturers are discussed and helps Apple maintain a dominant position in the industry. Apple managed to sell only 6.4 million iPad tablets in the first 3 months of this year, the figure combined with 2 million Macs sold in the same period places Apple on the 4th place in the list of PC sellers. Apple registered an increase of $188 compared to the same period last year, but in total it registered a decrease of 31% compared to the previous fiscal quarter.
Apple sells 3 times more iPad tablets than Macs, which says a lot about the company's customer base.
Apple continued with its strategy to dominate the pad market, with the iPad or iPad 2 available in 59 markets by the end of Q1. A combination of strong Q4 sales and the announcement of the iPad 2's launch across major markets at the end of March contributed to Apple's iPad shipments being down 31% sequentially. The full impact of the iPad 2 launch will not register until subsequent quarters, as Apple gets the product into the hands of consumers. While pad sales continued to lift Apple's results, PC vendors with a focus on the consumer netbook and notebook market, such as Acer and Asus, did not fare so well.
