Apple to sell more Macs and iPads in 2012 than HP sells PCs

Apple is set to shift more Macs and iPads next year than HP will sell PCs, our sister site silicon reports.

Citing data from number-crunching boffins Canalys, the report reckons Apple has a 15 per cent slice of the PC market, if you lump iPads in with all the Macs Apple sells.

That's one percentage point lower than HP's 16 per cent share of the market, but it's reckoned that the release of a new iPad next year will cause Apple to overtake messieurs Hewlett et Packard to become the world leader in flogging computery electrical gubbins.

Traditionally Apple has never been anywhere close to market leadership, with Mac computers pitched squarely at creative types and coffee shop-dwelling hipsters, while HP and other PC companies offload bucketloads of Windows computers on big corporations, students and ordinary folk who don't need to run weird Mac-only software.

But could the iPad be replacing the PC as the everyday computing tool? The iPad is rubbish for getting work done or running specific bits of software, but it's great for web browsing or watching video, which is what many folk primarily want a computer for. Apple's slate is already outselling all netbooks, for example.

HP had a pop at Apple's tablet monopoly with the TouchPad, but it ended in disaster when HP abandoned the webOS operating system, slashing the price of the TouchPad to under £100.

What do you think about the iPad? Are we on the cusp of a full Apple technology takeover, where all of our gadgets are designed and run out of gleaming Cupertino offices? What can other companies do to stop Apple? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Facebook wall.