Thread by @stevesi

The number of iPads being sold is huge. It is worth putting it in context. (Horace does the best analysis and accounting of Apple's business) 1/

https://twitter.com/asymco/status/1354826189374808067

2/ Just finished a "blow out" year for PC sales, at 275 million. Sounds huge from a growth perspective, but that still doesn't approach estimates of 450 million or more from a decade ago.

3/ The underlying shift that started in 2010--towards low power, high reliability, "sealed case", app store, connected to phones, WWAN, and more computers epitomized by the iPad -- remains in full swing.

4/ A way to contextualize this is to look at iPads relative to laptops. About 200M PCs were laptops, IF chromebooks are included. Estimates are that Chromebooks are about 30M units. computerworld.com/article/360462…

5/ You can see this if you compare Gartner to IDC PC sales. For mysterious reasons IDC includes Chromebooks in PCs but not Surface Pro like devices. Gartner doesn't include Chromebooks (and reflects traditional desktop OS PCs).

6/ Generally, a rule of thumb is that half of PCs are from business buyers. So about 100M laptops are bought by businesses. It also means almost half that number are alternatives to laptops. Half. Half of all laptops WW. That's a lot.

7/ The arguments over whether the iPad (or Chromebook) are a "substitute" or "adjacenct" to a laptop no longer matter at this volume. There's an inevitable march towards the new architecture for portable computing.

8/ It doesn't change that there are 200-300M people who *must* use a traditional x86 laptop/desktop for work for compatibility, their professional software package, or just their view of "productivity". Heck I'm even using a Surface right now.

9/ The most interesting question is where do you count the M1 Macintosh? :-)

What an incredible shift in the "personal computer" platform this turned out to be.