The inevitable has happened – smartphone shipments have finally overtaken that of PCs, with the former shipping 100.9 million units to stores worldwide in the final quarter of 2010, while the PC camp could muster only 92.1 million units – at least these are the statistics available to us according to a study released this week by IDC. One of the main cause for smartphones overtaking PCs would be the phenomenal growth of the smartphone market, where 2009 and 2010 saw shipments triple, while PC shipments grew at just 45%. Part of this could be due to the way contracts work, especially in the US where one buys new devices once every couple of years when their contracts are up, and with the US being the largest smartphone market, it makes perfect sense. PCs, on the other hand, lasts a whole lot longer and are more expensive. It really depends on how you want to interpret such statistics, but one thing’s for sure – smartphones are here to stay.
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