Smartphone Sales in 2011 Exceed PC’s

According to industry research firm Canalys, global shipments of smartphones surpassed those of PC’s for the first time ever in 2011. Sales of smartphones totaled 487.7 billion units, while PC’s lagged behind at 414.6 million units—and the “PC” category included tablets as well as the laptops and desktops most of us normally refer to as computers.

This new development is attributed to rapid growth in the smartphone market in 2011; shipments increased 63% from the 299.7 million sold in 2010, while the PC market grew only 15% in the same time period. The huge increase in mobile sales is no doubt due to the increased availability of lower-priced smartphones, as well as an uptick of general interest in high-tech mobile devices, with more companies entering the market with competitive products.

According to the sales numbers, 2011 was a banner year for Apple in particular—93.1 million iPhones were sold last year, marking a whopping 96% increase from 2010 and putting Apple ahead of Nokia in smartphone sales for the first time. Additionally, Apple sold 5.2 million Macs and 15.4 million iPads, making it the leading PC vendor of 2011.

Grouping sales by OS paints an interesting picture of the changing smartphone scene. Android leads the race by a wide margin, with Google’s mobile OS being on 48.8% of devices shipped in 2011. Apple’s iOS came in second with 19.1% (although, keep in mind that these numbers don’t include the iPad), Symbian accounted for 16.4% of sales and BlackBerry came in fourth with 10.5%.

It’s apparent by these numbers that Android holds a solid advantage in sales due to wide availability of compatible handsets, although no single Android device maker matched Apple in sales.

2011 also saw a sharp decline in demand for netbooks, with many consumers opting for tablets instead. However, analysts believe tablets have had a negligible impact on smartphone sales, showing that most customers feel that an iPad or similar device is not a suitable substitute for a more portable smartphone.