NPD Finds iPad, Chromebook Success In 2013

To the end of November, 14.4 million desktops, notebooks and tablets were sold through US commercial channels, leading to a 25.4 percent increase over 2012, according to The NPD Group’s Distributor Track and Commercial Reseller Tracking Service.

Desktop sales through the channel increased 8.5 percent, notebooks grew 28.9 percent and tablets jumped 49 percent growth over the same time period in 2012.

Tablet boom

HP led commercial personal computing devices, but even with a 6 percent increase in total notebook sales, its small exposure to booming tablet market drove its share down. Lenovo remained the second largest channel vendor with notebook sales up almost 18 percent and desktops up 30 percent.

Apple’s dominant position in the tablet market, which accounted for more than 80 percent of its commercial sales, made it the third largest brand. Samsung, as a result of its rapid expansion of Chromebook and Android tablet sales, was ranked No. 4.

“Tepid Windows PC sales allowed brands with a focus on alternative form factors or operating systems, like Apple and Samsung, to capture significant share of a market traditionally dominated by Windows devices,” Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis with NPD, said in a statement. “Yet the Windows PC in commercial channels is clearly not dead, and its biggest brand proponents, HP and Lenovo, remain deeply committed to that product.”

Tablet sales captured more than 22 percent of all personal computing device sales sold through the commercial channel through November, Windows tablet sales nearly tripled off a very small base, and Android tablet sales grew more than 160 percent. Sales of Apple’s recently refreshed iPad accounted for 59 percent of the volume in the tablet market.

However, Apple sales for notebooks and desktops combined fell by 7 percent. Windows notebooks showed no growth over 2012 but Windows desktops increased by nearly 10 percent.

Chromebooks on the rise

Chromebooks accounted for 21 percent of all notebook sales, up from a negligible share in the prior year, and 8 percent of all computer and tablet sales through November, up from one-tenth of a percent in 2012–the largest share increase across the various product segments, the report noted.

“The market for personal computing devices in commercial markets continues to shift and change,” Baker continued. “New products like Chromebooks, and reimagined items like Windows tablets, are now supplementing the revitalisation that iPads started in personal computing devices. It is no accident that we are seeing the fruits of this change in the commercial markets as business and institutional buyers exploit the flexibility inherent in the new range of choices now open to them.”

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Originally published on eWeek.