Are mobile devices responsible for a five per cent drop in PC sales?

In Q4, 2012, worldwide PC shipments dropped by 4.9 per cent year-on-year, according to preliminary figures from Gartner.

Shipments totalled 90.3m units, compared to 95m in Q4, 2011. Sales of laptops and netbooks were down by 11 per cent, compared to six per cent for desktop, suggesting that the drop might be caused by a surge in the adoptions of smartphones and particularly smartphones, which can go some way to filling the role of a laptop.