"Beyond its large size, China’s PC market exhibits distinct characteristics that set it apart from the computer trade elsewhere, possessing a vast untapped rural market and unique consumer-purchasing patterns. While desktop PC shipments lagged notebooks around the world, the two PC segments were on par in China in 2012, with an even 50-50 split.
* * * "[S]aid Peter Lin, senior analyst for compute platforms at IHS[: ']The relatively large percentage of desktop PC shipments in China is due to huge demand in the country’s rural areas, which account for a major segment of the country’s 1.34 billion citizens. These consumers tend to prefer the desktop form factor.'
"The market will change gradually as desktop PCs face rising competition from the high value proposition presented by notebooks. Notebooks will then surpass desktops in the country by 2014, tracking more closely with the worldwide [more actually, rest of the world or outside China] desktop-to-notebook PC ratio of 36 to 64 percent.
My comment:
(a) The iSuppli report does not mention or take tablets into consideration.
(b) The iSuppli report deals with "PC" only--and volume (numbers of shipment), not value (price sold), of PC alone.