For the first time since 2010 the PC has out grown the tablet. According to reports from analyst Context tablet sales were reported to only have seen single digit growth of around 6.8 percent in April and May year on year. Now this report only highlights that this was growth was achieved by Western European distributors but still an increase of around 20% is impressive none the less.

Could this be the first signs that the desktop Pc has finally started to rally after month upon month, quarter upon quarter of decline? Unfortunately that seems unlikely however much people in some quarters might be wishing. It seems highly likely that this shift in the pecking order can be put in no small part down the effects of the ending of support for Microsoft XP. Many people both the general consumer and business market suddenly found themselves utilising and operating systems that could soon be laid bare to viruses and attacks as security updates cease to be dispatch to their machines. A not to insignificant number have clearly seen this as an ideal opportunity to update their hardware rather than just updating the operating system on their existing machines.

The tablet market place could be reaching saturation point as the growth through the channel has slowed with the rate of growth decreasing by nearly 4 percent. Whilst this is still an increase of nearly 7 percent so there are still areas to make inroads into. This could be especially true given that Android operated tablets have outshone at one time previously all-conquering iPad during the first two months of quarter two. Windows operated tablets got into the action with sales bouncing up a very credible 26 percent however given the small base it was starting from this increase is less impressive when this is taken into account.

However to return to our original statistic of PC sales growing 20% for Western European distributors it does seem incredibly hard to imagine a scenario where this could possible continue over the months to come as the demand to replace XP backed machines dies down. The tablet has slowly been answering the questions enterprise users have been asking of it and more and more businesses seem to be falling under their spell. Perhaps the death of XP has extended the desktop PC’s battle for a few more rounds but it does still look likely that eventually the desktop will be unable to answer the referee’s bell.