Canalys

Apple was the leading worldwide client PC vendor in Q4, pushing HP off its perch, according to Canalys, which unlike Gartner and IDC, doesn't hesitate to lump tablets in with desktops, netbooks and notebooks.

It says that since Apple shipped over 15 million iPads and five million Macs last quarter it did 17% of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally, up 6% year-over-year.

Canalys predicts that "HP will struggle to compete with Apple following the end of its Touchpad" given doubts about how Windows 8 will do on HP tablets once it's out.

HP is as well being pressured from below by Lenovo, the only vendor aside from this Apple to add market share last quarter. It's looking to displace HP.

Tablets, the contrarian researcher said, accounted for 22% of total PC shipments in Q4. Amazon is second behind Apple in tablets worldwide thanks to the Kindle Fire. All regions grew year-on-year counting tablets. Excluding tablets, nevertheless, shipments in EMEA and North America declined, due to weaker consumer demand, in spite of the traditional Q4 holiday tickle.

Maureen O'Gara the most read innovation reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected innovation reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara