Smartphone sales grew 62% to overtake PC sales in 2011

PanARMENIAN.Net - Smartphone sales grew by 62% during 2011, reaching 488 million units sold and, for the first time, outselling the venerable PC in all of its forms.

Neowin.net says that according to a report for Canalys, smartphones overtook PC sales, including tablets, desktops, and every kind of notebook you can think of, which only sold a combined 415 million units.

The change marks a major milestone in the history of technology, showing that more and more people are, unsurprisingly, embracing more mobile forms of computing. Even though traditional PCs are going strong and won't be disappearing any time soon (almost 209 million notebooks sold last year, 112 million desktops), they no longer represent the end all be all of computing.

The study also shows a very sharp drop in netbook sales, which was more than offset by huge growth in tablets, with only 29 million units selling last year, a 25% decline from 2010. As Chris Jones, Canalys VP and Principal Analyst, puts it, “In 2011 we saw a fall in demand for netbooks, and slowing demand for notebooks and desktops as a direct result of rising interest in pads, but pads have had negligible impact on smartphone volumes..."

Apple came out as the most successful smartphone vendor, with Samsung not too far behind, although Android came in as the largest platform. It's hard to call Nokia's performance good but, as the report puts it, it does give cause for a bit of optimism. With 77 million smartphones shipped, it's down from their record high from 2010, but at least it's an improvement from Q3 of 2011.

Windows Phones represented only 1.2 million of Nokia's shipments in the last quarter of 2011.