Apple tops 2011 mobile PC sales if iPad is included

According to an NPD DisplaySearch report, Apple was the top mobile PC vendor for the fourth quarter of 2011 and the rest of the year -- if you consider iPads to be mobile PCs.

In the fourth quarter, Apple shipped almost 23.4 million MacBooks and iPads, and over 62.8 million for the entire year. The NPD numbers show that almost 80 percent of the Apple totals consisted of iPads (18.7 million in the fourth quarter, 48.4 million for all of 2011).

The analysis for that final quarter of 2011 shows that when considering tablets alongside notebooks, Apple had a 59.1 percent share of the market. Amazon shipped an estimated 5.3 million units (about a 16.7 percent market share) during that time, showing the popularity of the Android-powered, US$199 Kindle Fire.

When looking at notebook computers only, HP was the winner, shipping 8.7 million notebooks in the fourth quarter. Apple was in fifth place behind Dell, Acer, and Lenovo with only 4.6 million MacBooks sold. NPD said that the numbers for notebooks were flat for the fourth quarter, while the year-over-year numbers showed sales up about 11 percent.