Report: Smart Phones Outsell PCs

Fry's Ad Offering Smartphones

In something of a landmark event, a widely publicized report asserts that smart phones are now outselling PCs. The tech consulting/analysis firm Canalys, which prepared the document, estimates that 488 million smart phones were shipped in 2011. PCs followed with 415 million units shipped.

Granted that "shipped" and "sold" are not quite the same thing, as anyone working the wholesale business will quickly tell you. The data nonetheless offer a compelling illustration of a shift in how mass market consumers and providers create, retrieve, and send information.

While it's easy to infer that Apple is the big winner here, a closer look at the data offers a different perspective. The Android system has definitely taken a big bite from the smartphone market. Samsung is selling lots and lots of phones. Apple's best move, according to the data, is not the iPhone -- it's the iPad. The iPad maintains a dominant place in its category, up to now. No wonder Amazon rushed the Kindle Fire (KF) to the market (before all of KF's kinks were worked out). Even less wonder why HP dropped out of the tablet race, even though its tablet was pretty good.

I suppose all of this sounds "business-y" and a little too enamored of data for its own good. That's a point taken. However, you can't deny the revolution in communication that's now in everyman's -- and everywoman's -- hands. It's as if we've moved from the horse and buggy era into the that of the automobile, from stage to movies, from sailing to flying.