Any place to get some crude statistics on desktop vs laptops?

[konakona]

Dunno, maybe this question belongs in OT but I am a bit too scared to post there. OT folks are just too brutal

I got into an interesting debate over a different topic, and some posters there seemed to imply most people buy laptops and laptops only. It is true that laptops are becoming more affordable and mainstream compared to the past days, and the fact that gamers that must have bleeding edge GPUs and accompanying desktops could be a relative minority. But is it to the point where desktops are totally irrelevant these days?

What makes this comparison harder is I am not interested in what firms equip their work environments with, just the individual end users that have choice to build or buy their own computers. Google has been a good friend for the most part, but for things like these I just don't know where to start. Any ideas?

 

[corkyg]

Right now, laptops are winning. In 2008, there were more laptops sold in the US than desktops. That is expected to grow worldwide in 2009.

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[konakona]

Does desktop in that analysis include DIY builds? I suppose it doesn't. If you do want to include that, how would one go about it? Maybe count the total # of desktop cpus sold? Every computer would have a cpu of some sort you know

 

[corkyg]

Good question. Much of the answer depends on what to look for. DIY computers are currently included in the stats for "white box" computers. That data is harder to come by,

WB

Indications are that in the past 2 years, the white box numbers have declined due to the overall economy, and people squeezing their dollars. It is now difficult for the DIY and local custom builder to compete with the low prices bening offered by major OEMs.

Counting CPUs produced, might be a start point. But many are spare parts, and others are upgrades to OEM units.