Apple Tops PC Market, iPhone 5 To Get NFC?

Apple has been selling iPads like hot cakes. The company has shipped 15m iPads and 5m Macs in the 4th quarter of 2011. That has pushed the company to the top of the PC market. According to Canalys, Apple’s sales represent 17% of the total 120m PCs shipped in the fourth quarter of 2011. HP managed to snatch the No. 2 position with 12.7% of the sales.

We’re going through the biggest shift the PC industry has seen in 20 years. It’s very difficult to grow in the classic PC market when all of the growth is coming from iPads … In five years, maybe less, a company like Amazon may be a bigger PC company than some of the top fives today. It’s a fundamental shift so those who are in denial are in trouble.

Steve Brazier, CEO of Canalys, told tech portal CNET. It is fair to argue that Apple’s results are not that impressive if iPad sales are excluded. But the client PC market has not really grown if “pad” devices are disregarded. Tablets accounted for 22% of PC shipments in the last three months of 2011 (counting other tablets such as the Kindle Fire and NOOK).

Apple may be making a ton of money from iPads but it is also looking for new ways to take the iPhone to the next level. A “well-connected” developer has told 9 to 5 Mac that Apple software engineers are “heavy into NFC.” We have heard plenty of times about Apple’s plans to bring NFC to the next generation iPhone. Paypass is expected to be Apple’s NFC partner at this point. These are all rumors at this point but adding NFC to iPhone 5 seems like a very logical move for Apple.