Microsoft’s first venture into the tablet market didn’t exactly go well but the company has been doggedly refining and improving its products to the point where it may be starting to see some sales success. ZDNet’s Ed Bott does a nice job of digging through Gartner’s latest report on PC sales and has found that there’s one category of PCs that has been surging this year: Premium ultra-mobile PCs such as the MacBook Air and the Surface Pro 3.
According to Gartner’s latest numbers, shipments of premium ultra-mobile PCs will jump from 22 million in 2013 to 32 million this year and are projected to jump even high to 55 million in 2015. Gartner says that the premium ultra-mobile PC category includes “Microsoft’s Windows 8 Intel x86 products and Apple’s MacBook Air.” As Bott notes, this category does not include the Windows RT-based Surface series, which he says is still struggling to gain any traction in the market.
“If Gartner’s predictions are accurate, the installed base of Premium Ultramobile devices that are less than three years old will exceed 100 million by the end of 2015,” Bott writes. “Of that total, Windows-based devices should make up roughly 80 percent, with the remainder mostly consisting of MacBook Airs.”
It’s interesting that Microsoft seems to be having more success so far with its pricier Surface Pro line than its less expensive Surface RT line, although it shouldn’t be surprising: Windows RT has basically become a pointless platform that Microsoft will likely incorporate into Windows Phone over the next year.
Bott’s full report is a terrific read and can be found by clicking the source link below.
