Survey: Stellar iPhone sales help Apple beat Android in the United States

9to5 Staff

Apple announced monster sales of 37 million iPhones yesterday for the holiday quarter that spanned 14 weeks and ended Dec. 31, 2011. It’s a 128 percent unit increase and 133 percent revenue increase, annually, and enough to knock Samsung off the No. 1 spot it briefly held in the previous quarter. However, it appears that the popularity of the iPhone 4S also helped Apple thrive over Google’s platform, especially with Android backers such as Motorola Mobility, HTC and Sony Ericsson reporting disappointing results.

According to research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech (via Reuters), iPhone sales gave iPhone a lead over Android in smartphone sales in the United States. Specifically, Apple’s share of the U.S. market during October to November of last year doubled from 22.45 percent a year ago to 44.9 percent. Meanwhile Google’s Android smartphones dropped from 50 percent to 44.8 percent in the same period. Kantar’s global consumer insight director Dominic Sunnebo:

Apple has continued its strong sales run in the U.S., UK and Australia over the Christmas period. Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover.

Another way to look at iPhone numbers: The iPhone business generated $24.42 billion revenue. During the same quarter, all of Microsoft raked in $20.89 billion revenue. In fact, all of Apple’s holiday-quarter revenues and profits were two times higher than Microsoft’s.

Yet another look at iPhone numbers: Apple sells more iPhones in a day than babies born.

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Gartner: No one in the world uses more semiconductors than Apple

9to5 Staff

With the growing sales of Apple’s mobile devices and the ever-increasing popularity of smartphones (analysts projected 30+ million iPhones for today’s holiday quarter earnings call), it is no surprise that the Mac-maker is rising up the chip-purchasing ladder. According to research firm Gartner, Apple is now the world’s largest buyer of silicon parts, spending an astounding $17 billion on semiconductors in 2011 and accounting for a 5.7 percent share of total silicon buying.

That’s a 34.6 percent increase over 2010— enough to jump two spots ahead of rivals Samsung and the world’s leading computer maker Hewlett-Packard (soon to be displaced by Apple). Apple’s rise stems of strong sales of iPads, iPhones and its popular MacBook Air ultra-portable notebook family. Samsung ranked second with $16.7 billion worth of semiconductors in 2011, a 5.5 percent share. Computer makers Hewlett-Packard and Dell and cell phone giant Nokia round up the list of top five chip buyers with $16.7 billion, $9.8 billion and $9 billion worth of silicon parts, respectively.

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Apple to blow past HP and become top personal computer vendor on strong holiday sales of Macs, iPhones and iPads

9to5 Staff

Counting tablet PCs as personal computers, Apple is about to overtake Hewlett-Packard and become the world’s top personal computer vendor. All should be known soon when Apple reveals holiday quarter earnings in a conference call with analysts scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 24.

HP CEO Meg Whitman was first to admit that such a turn of event neither would nor be entirely unsurprising given Apple’s lead in the post-PC world. Whitman said back in November, “It’s possible if you integrate tablets.” Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt wrote that, based on a poll of 42 analysts, iPad sales could hit the 14 million mark, a notable increase over the 11.12 million iPads sold during the September quarter.

Fortune’s estimates range from 11.7 million (Hendi Susanto of Gabelli & Co) to 19.47 million iPads (Alexis Cabot of the Apple Finance Board). According to research firm Gartner, HP shipped 14.7 million PCs in the last quarter, down 16 percent from a year ago.

Now, Apple in this last quarter cleared 4.89 million Macs, and its holiday sales are estimated to exceed 5 million units. Combined, iPad and Mac will have sold over 20 million units during the holiday quarter, enough to give the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology powerhouse a few million units lead over HP, the world’s leading computer vendor.

Estimated unit sales translate into a 17.6-percent market share for Apple versus 13 percent for HP, representing a landmark achievement by any measure. Again, that’s assuming tablets are counted as personal computers. As noted by Asymco’s Horace Dediu, Apple has never held the top spot. Its Apple II system peaked at 15.8 -percent share in 1984 and the Mac peaked at 12 percent in 1992. Interesting that Lenovo CEO praised Apple last week, saying about Android on tablets that “We still need to learn something, we still need to improve something”.

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HP CEO: With iPad, Apple could pass us in 2012 (and we might go Android)

9to5 Staff

Meg Whitman, 55, a former eBay CEO and the president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard since September 2011, has no doubt in her mind that Apple stands a chance of zooming past Hewlett-Packard, the world’s leading computer vendor, some time during next year.

Whitman’s appraisal of Apple assumes, of course, that one considers tablets, such as Apple’s iPad, personal computers.

Commenting on a recent Canalys survey that first predicted Apple’s likely takeover of Hewlett-Packard with a little help from the yet unreleased iPad 3, Whitman told French newspaper Le Figaro (machine translated):

Yes. I think it’s possible if you integrate tablets. Apple does a great job. We need to improve our game and our products to take over the leadership position. Apple could go past HP in 2012. We will try to become the champion in 2013. It takes time for the products on which I have come to influence the market.

Hewlett-Packard is the world’s leading computer vendor, operating in nearly every country. More interesting than that, Whitman said her company will reach a decision soon on the fate of the webOS mobile operating system, which has remained in turmoil after HP indicated it might sell of that asset. She reassured Hewlett-Packard fans that her company is open to all options and nodded at Android as one of the choices being considered.

According to TechCrunch, she said:
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Canalys: Apple on track to become the world’s #1 PC maker, with a little help from iPad 3

9to5 Staff

Research firm Canalys on Monday said it expects Apple to overtake Hewlett-Packard to become the world’s leading PC maker before the second half of 2012. That is, if you count tablets as computers (many people don’t). The launch of iPad 3 early next year is predicted to boost Apple’s share of the global PC market. Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling:

Apple has seen its PC market share expand from 9 percent to 15 percent in just four quarters, though iPad shipments in its core market – the United States – are likely to come under pressure in Q4 due to the launch of the Fire and Nook at extremely competitive price points.

Charlie Wolf of Needham and Co last week said the Mac passed the magic five percent global market share. Canalys’ data includes computer and tablet sales. Earlier this month Canalys pegged Apple’s share of the global PC market at 15 percent, right behind the #1 HP with 16 percent share. CAnalys predicts that 2011 PC sales will grow 15 percent to hit 415 million units, of which 211 million should be notebook units where Apple absolutely dominates.

Ultrabooks? “For Ultrabooks to become widespread, prices have to drop considerably”, Canalys said. As for other tablets, DigiTimes expects high inventory levels of non-Apple tablets following the holiday season. This is partly due to the launch of the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet  which undercut other Android tablets, meaning “several waves of price cuts are expected in the new year”. Meanwhile, white box tablets, which dropped below $100, are not expected to affect iPad sales.
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