75.3 Percent Rise Vs 6.4 Percent Drop In Q4: What Are We Talking About?

The Tablet and PC markets, of course. This is following a pattern similar to the ebooks vs physical books graph. We spotted this today, that in Q4 2012, PC sales were down 6.4 percent from a year ago - and tablet sales were way up. 52.5 million units - that is the total number of tablets sold in Q4. (Source).

How do we digest this stat? That's easy - people buy iPads for the holidays and not big old PCs. For example, Apple's iPad Mini alone sold some 22.9 million units. But attributing this stat to the holidays would be missing the big picture change happening in the industry: the emergence of the post-pc era.