iPad Helps Apple Soar Past HP in Mobile PC Shipments

In a recent report released by Display Search, Apple is now the leading mobile PC company in terms of fourth quarter 2010 market share, moving past HP to claim the top spot. The Cupertino, California maker of iPads and MacBooks shipped more than 10.2 million notebooks and tablets combined, besting HP’s shipment score of 9.3 million by nearly a million units.

Apple’s market share is helped by the iPad’s fast adoption rate as well as an annual growth rate for its notebook line that exceeds the industry average.

“While we anticipate increased competition in the tablet PC market later this year with the introduction of Android Honeycomb-based tablets, Apple’s iPad business is complementing a notebook line whose shipments widely exceed the industry average growth rate,” said Richard Shim, Senior Analyst at DisplaySearch. “Apple is currently benefiting from significant and comprehensive growth from both sectors of the mobile PC spectrum, notebooks and tablet PCs. Cannibalization seems limited at this point.”

Apple’s recently released MacBook Air ultraportable lineup may also help the company as well. At a $1,000 entry price point, the MacBook Air is more affordable than the company’s MacBook Pro lineup, but features excellent build quality, long battery life, and advanced technology like SSD built-in, which the company boasts to give instant on capabilities.

It’s unclear if Apple’s growth rate for the iPad can continue as the company will face increasing competition from HP with the webOS TouchPad tablet as well as the increased number of Android tablets that were shown at CES and are continuing to debut at Mobile World Congress.

After Apple and HP, Acer, Dell, and Toshiba round out the top five mobile PC-makers in terms of market share.

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