Here’s How the iPad is EATING at PC Sales

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad is likely to continue dominating the tablet market, according to a new analysis, while PC sales will keep falling.

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Evercore Partners analyst Rob Cihra has cut his projected PC sales for the rest of the year, predicting that traditional computer sales will drop 4 percent year over year in the third quarter while overall PC growth for the year stays flat. Cihra pegs the slowdown on growing sales of tablets like the iPad.

The analyst believes tablet sales are responsible for “at least half” of the PC market’s current decline and predicts that even the launch of Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows 8, projected for later this year, will not stem the flow, according to Apple Insider. Cihra believes that a quarter of tablet purchases are truly direct replacements for PCs, while another quarter are “effectively” replacing PCs by delaying purchases.

Instead, he had big predictions for the iPad. According to Cihra, Apple will sell 69 million iPads in the calendar year 2012, owning more than 60 percent of the market. That will come despite the competition from Microsoft’s forthcoming Surface tablet and Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) just-launched Nexus 7. The analyst also estimates that Apple sold 16.5 million iPad units in the June quarter, representing 78 percent year-over-year growth.

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