Smartphone Market Squashes PC Market

They’ve only been around for a few years, but smartphones have officially demoted personal computers to No. 2. More smartphones than PCs were shipped in Q4 of 2010—a total of 101 million smartphones, to be exact, up 87% from a year earlier, according to the market researcher. Meanwhile, 92 million PCs were shipped, a gain of less than 3%. Analysts always expected smartphones to surpass PCs, but not until sometime this year, the Financial Times reports.

Android proved to be the most popular phone software, while Nokia shipped the most phones. The Apple iPhone, which almost doubled its share from a year previously, claimed the No. 2 spot after Nokia. All of this is bad news for the PC market, which would have grown faster if iPads were considered PCs, Business Insider notes. But they’re not—and globally, they’ve snagged more than 7% of the PC market. Click for more on the dwindling era of the PC.
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