14 DAY TRIAL // After a time of leadership on the market of all-in-one personal computers, Apple could be forced to cede victory to a different company in 2012.
Apple is a company that sells products primarily to those customers with financial income to spare.
As such, with all-in-one systems offering just compactness as an incentive to be bought instead of an actual desktop PC, they were particularly appealing to such people.
It is for this reason that iMac systems have been selling well in the US and why other PC makers can't exactly claim to have done better in this area, Windows or not.
Now, though, Digitimes Research expects 2012 to show some change to the rankings.
Currently, the iMac owns about 30 percent of the AiO segment which, in turn, holds less than 10 percent of the total PC industry.
In 2012, that share of the Cupertino company will drop to 24.1 percent.
In the meantime, Lenovo's share will grow to about 25%, hence its likely acquirement of the top position.
Lenovo has a wider product and price variety, while Apple has a somewhat limited collection and definitely not as wide a coverage of the price range.
Then again, Apple has been showing signs that it is placing more emphasis on mobile devices, like MacBooks and, of course, the iPad tablet.
As such, it won't actually be as aggressive on the AiO front as Lenovo intends to, unless its iMac hardware revision in 2012 does something major (the last time the iMac got a significant overhaul was in 2009).
In related news, HP might climb to 18% on the all-in-one front, though its recent troubles make it hard to be sure of anything.
Either way, whoever ends up on top next year will benefit from the overall increase of the AiO market as a whole (could secure a 10.5% global share).