Apple's fiscal Q4 iPad shipments in the September quarter were enough to propel the Mac maker into a near tie in unit sales with global PC maker HP. When Apple releases figures for the final quarter of 2011 later this month, it may become the world's largest PC maker.



From Apple Insider:

After Fortune published a graphic showing the huge impact of Apple's iPad sales on PC market share, Sebastian Peitsch of German blog Apple Outsider painstakingly researched PC market share figures back through 2008 to offer a corrected version.

His graphic portrays what Garner would have reported since 2010 if the research company weren't artificially excluding the iPad from its PC market share figures, a tactic it suddenly initiated alongside the launch of the iPad after years of including Microsoft's Tablet PCs, UMPCs and other tablets in its official PC numbers.

  iPad may make Apple world's largest PC maker in holiday Q4 2011