Apple tops PC market, but lead shrinks, says Canalys

Apple sits up top of the global PC market, but No. 2 Lenovo is beginning to ship more tablets, says market researcher Canalys, which includes tablets in its calculations.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor

Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.

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Brooke Crothers

Aug. 6, 2013 7:35 p.m. PT

2 min read

iPad Mini: Apple 'must bring fresh innovation to future generations of its iPad' to keep ahead of the pack, said Canalys. Apple

Apple still has a commanding lead of the global PC market but has lost ground to Lenovo, according to Canalys, which includes tablets in its quarterly ranking of PCs.

Apple remained the top PC vendor in the second quarter, but its share fell more than 2 percentage points to 17.1 percent due a drop in iPad shipments, the market researcher said Tuesday. This reflects tablet numbers released in a report from Canalys last week showing that Android tablets had made gains on Apple.

Desktop and notebook shipments accounted for only about 20 percent of Apple's total PC shipments.

While Lenovo had a strong showing in traditional PCs, its tablet shipments have grown too, racking up around 1.5 million units in the quarter, according to Canalys.

"Lenovo is on an upward curve with its tablets, expanding in mainland China and Latin America, where there is little competition from the likes of Google or Amazon," Canalys Analyst James Wang said in a statement.

And Hewlett-Packard overtook Samsung to regain third place in the quarter. HP has now launched two Android tablets: the $140 Slate 7 and the $480 SlateBook x2 hybrid.

"HP has a broad enterprise portfolio, channel relationships and global reach that others still cannot match," said Canalys Analyst Pin-Chen Tang.

To maintain its solid lead in the global PC market, Apple needs new models, which are rumored, by the way, to be coming this fall. "With tablet vendors attacking Apple on price it must bring fresh innovation to future generations of its iPad range if it is to maintain the lead it has built in the PC market," Canalys said.