Perhaps hinting what is to come in the following years, research firm Canalys has reported that there smartphones have outsold PCs for the first time, with the firm estimating that the former has sold 158.5 million units in Q4 of 2011 as opposed to the former’s 120.2 million units. It’s worth noting that Canalys also considers tablets as PCs, though if you took out tablets from the count, PCs sales would be a lot lower, clocking in at 93.7 units sold. While this is welcome news for both Apple and Google, it’s possibly dire news for Microsoft – who for years have depended on PCs to power its business forward. With PCs sales declining, the pressure on the firm from Redmond is at an all time high, and if they can’t make good on the promise of Windows 8 (or make Phone 7 perform better) then the company might be heading towards a slow decline into irrelevance.
Source: Business Insider