Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Computers running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software and Intel Corp.’s processors will continue losing market share to tablets and smartphones this year, according to researcher Canalys.
So-called Wintel machines will grab 65 percent of the computer market this year, down from 72 percent in 2012, Canalys said. In the fourth quarter of last year, combined shipments of desktops, netbooks and notebooks declined about 10 percent from the same period in 2011.
Windows 8, a new version of Microsoft’s flagship software revamped to work with touch-screen machines, hasn’t helped boost PC sales because many consumers resisted the need to learn a new operating system, Canalys said. As PCs fall out of favor, the market for tablets such as Apple Inc.’s iPad and touch-screen devices running Google Inc.’s Android software will surge to reach 59 percent of the market, or 389 million units, by 2016.
“Wintel PCs are becoming less likely as an individual’s first choice of computing device for everyday tasks, such as sending e-mail or Web browsing,” Pin-Chen Tang, an analyst at Canalys, said in a research report. “Pads and, increasingly, smartphones can perform many of the day-to-day computing tasks that most people require.”
--Editors: Lisa Rapaport, John Lear
To contact the reporter on this story: Lisa Rapaport in New York at lrapaport1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
