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Smartphone market delivers 73m more shipments than PCs

by Zen Terrelonge
Monday, February 6th 2012 at 11:06AM

Smartphone market delivers 73m more shipments than PCs

Almost 488m phones shipped worldwide in 2011.

There seems to be no stopping the smartphone juggernaut, which continues to grow while the desktop market stutters.

Canalys says smartphone manufacturers shipped 487.7 million devices in 2011, compared to PC manufacturers shipping 414.6 million units. That means smartphone shipments grew by 62.7 per cent from 2010 to 2011, while PC shipments rose by just 14.8 per cent, according to the report.

For the purposes of the report, market researcher Canalys included tablets under the PC bracket, along with netbooks, notebooks and desktops.

Chris Jones, Canalys VP and principal analyst, said: "In 2011 we saw a fall in demand for netbooks, and slowing demand for notebooks and desktops as a direct result of rising interest in pads. But pads have had negligible impact on smartphone volumes and markets across the globe have seen persistent and substantial growth through 2011.

"Smartphone shipments overtaking those of client PCs should be seen as a significant milestone. In the space of a few years, smartphones have grown from being a niche product segment at the high-end of the mobile phone market to becoming a truly mass-market proposition.

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"The greater availability of smartphones at lower price points has helped tremendously, but there has been a driving trend of increasing consumer appetite for internet browsing, content consumption and engaging with apps and services on mobile devices."

Canalys says the smartphone market will slow down this year, as manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei focus on profit margins with top end devices to move away from the low end market.

Of course, that may not be the case. Apple has proven it's high end devices are capable of appealing to the masses and the firm played a large role in the growth across both the smartphone and PC markets thanks to the clamour for the iPhone and iPad.