Gartner

PCs: Apple jumps to No. 3 in the U.S., even without the iPad

Meanwhile, sales growth slowed worldwide as buyers shifted to smartphones and tablets

The iPad was the elephant in the room as Gartner and IDC reported that worldwide PC sales in the second quarter of 2011 were even worse than their modest expectations.

Shipments grew only 2.6% according to IDC and only 2.3% according to Gartner, well below the 6.7% Gartner had predicted and a fraction of the 12% IDC reported in Q1.

Apple, MORE

Chitika: San Francisco is No. 1 Mac city, Vermont No. 1 state

Wyoming and West Virginia, at 4.19% apiece, have the lowest concentration of Apple computers

Apple's (AAPL) share of the U.S. PC market is still shy of 10%, according Gartner's first quarter 2011 report, but some parts of the country are more Mac friendly than others.

Drawing on research gathered between June 2 and 8 by Chitika's ad network, which serves more than than 70 million impressions per day, MacDailyNews reports that San MORE

Gartner: iPhone Q1 sales were "remarkable," considering

Despite higher prices, sales to end users worldwide more than doubled

Gartner issued its "mobile devices" report for the first quarter of 2011, two weeks after rival IDC's.

Here's what Gartner had to say about Apple (AAPL):

Apple sold 16.9 million units to end users worldwide, more than doubling its sales of iPhones year-on-year. This market-beating growth came from all regions: the iPhone is now available in 90 countries from 186 CSPs [communications MORE

The PC market as a giraffe

Gartner's picture of the computer industry would look very different if it included the iPad

The blue line is the PC market as Gartner defines it with the iPad's growth thrown in. The green line is PCs running Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows. The red line is Apple's (AAPL) Macintosh. The orange line is the Mac plus the iPad.

Want more? Read Horace Dediu's analysis at Asymco.com.

Also on Fortune.com:

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Where's that Verizon iPhone bump?

If Apple sold 1 million Verizon iPhones at launch, it doesn't show in ComScore's data

If you look very closely at the Feb. 2011 data in the chart at right you will see slight uptick in the green line that represents Apple's (AAPL) share of the U.S. smartphone market.

It's a subtle change. You might have to enlarge the chart (by clicking) to see it. It reflects, according to the ComScore data MORE

Gartner: iPad is 'dramatically' slowing mainstream mobile PC sales

The research firm blames devices like Apple's for a 34% drop in its 2010 growth estimates

"We expect growing consumer enthusiasm for mobile PC alternatives, such as the iPad and other media tablets, to dramatically slow home mobile PC sales, especially in mature markets."

That's George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, Inc., giving his clients the bad news that the 15.9% growth his company had projected for notebook computer sales MORE

Counting iPads, Apple is now No. 3 in PCs

Canalys bucks the trend and includes tablets in its analysis of worldwide PC shipments

Where research firms like Gartner, IDC and NPD saw anemic single-digit PC sales last quarter, Canalys saw what it described in a report issued Wednesday as "strong PC industry growth of 19% in Q4 2010."

The difference is that Canalys, unlike those other market research firms, includes tablets like Apple's (AAPL) iPad in its definition of a PC.

By MORE

Mac zigs while the PC market zags

Our survey of analysts suggests that Apple is set to report its first 4 million Mac quarter

In the Gartner report issued this week, U.S. sales of Apple's (AAPL) Macintosh computers grew 23% year over year last quarter while overall PC sales (even including the Mac) fell 6.6%.

That's been the story for much of 2010: PC sales weak, Macintosh sales strong.

But the Mac has been on its own trajectory for some MORE

Gartner: The PC industry blew it

The chickens are coming to roost for manufacturers that failed to innovate

"PCs are still seen as necessities," writes Gartner research director George Shiffler in a press release issued Monday. "But the PC industry's inability to significantly innovate and its overreliance on a business model predicated on driving volume through price declines are finally impacting the industry's ability to induce new replacement cycles."

Shiffler's harsh words come at the MORE