In 2013, an extremely brave analyst said that Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), si Microsoft they could merge in a few years and he was considered, most likely rightly, to be crazy, but the future will decide who is right. In 2014, the Romanian analyst Horace Dediu from Asymco says that the total sales of Apple products and the total sales of PCs could be at least equal. Yes, you read that right, practically the cumulative sales of iDevice/Macs could be equal or higher than the total of PCs, referring to the whole, and the prediction itself is very brave.
Today the situation is quite different. The total number of platform products Apple sold in 2013 was about 260 million. The total number of users Apple has is above 550 million. But the bigger story is how Apple's mobile platform has nearly reached the sales volume of Windows. In 2013 there were only 1.18 more Windows PCs than Apple devices sold. Odds are that in 2014 they will be at parity.
In 2013, 309 million PCs were sold worldwide, 16.3 million of which were Macs, while Apple sold 260 million products. PC sales decreased by 29 million units compared to 2012, and if we talk about a similar decrease for 2014, then the analyst's prediction could come true. If we remove the Macs from the initial calculation, we reach 293 million PCs, and if we reduce another 29 million units, we reach a possible sales figure of 274 million units for 2014.
Assuming that Apple would sell at least 14 million more products in 2014, then there would be equality between Apple and all PC manufacturers, at least in terms of the number of products sold in a year. Of course, this comparison is not quite so correct, but it demonstrates how much Apple has evolved since the company that in the 90s was saved from bankruptcy by Bill Gates.
