Post-PC era, here we come. IDC is projecting that tablet and smartphone sales this holiday season will “grow 55.8% and 39.5% year-over-year respectfully, while PCs are expected to decline slightly from this quarter a year ago.” The big winners in this scenario aren’t hard to figure out: IDC says that Apple (AAPL) and Samsung (005930) are poised to stay “at the top of the smart connected device space” while traditional PC manufacturers such as HP (HPQ) will continue to languish.
IDC estimates that Samsung has nearly doubled its total PC, tablet and smartphone shipments over the past year, while Apple’s shipments have grown by a healthy 38%. Lenovo has also shown healthy growth in shipments, as it shipped 21.1 million PCs, tablets and smartphones in the third quarter of 2012, a 60% increase from its 13.2 million shipments in Q3 2011.
On the downside, IDC says that “HP, which is virtually non-existent in the mobile space, has dropped its share from 7.4% in 3Q11 to 4.6% in 3Q12 with shipments declining 20.5% during that time.”
