DisplaySearch: Mobile PCs Now More Popular than Desktops in China

Take from this what you will, but for the very first time ever, mobile PC shipments outnumbered desktop shipments in China, according to the latest NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly China PC Shipment and Forecast Report. There's a bit of a caveat that goes with the claim. The mobile PC segment, as DisplaySearch calculates it, includes tablet PC shipments (in addition to notebooks and mini-notes), of which China is the third largest market in the world.

"Although shipments in desktop PCs are flat, the mobile PC market continued to show strong growth, reaching 26.5 million in 2H’11, up 25 percent from 1H’11," DisplaySearch said in its report. "In Q3’11, mobile PC shipments in China exceeded desktop PC shipments for the first time, thanks to the tremendous growth of tablet PCs."


It appears tablet PCs are cutting into sales of netbooks. According to DisplaySearch, the mini-note PC market in China continues to shrink. Lenovo stopped shipping netbooks altogether in the third quarter of 2011, bringing the total number of mini-note shipments down to just 668,000 for the period. Meanwhile, tablet PC shipments topped 4 million in the third quarter of 2011 in China, and 11.5 million for the entire year.

Do you think tablets quality as mobile PCs? What about smartphones and so-called superphones?