Tablets sales to surpass PCs: Apple CEO

Apple CEO Tim Cook has predicted tablet sales would overtake PC sales as he fired a broadside at the iPad\'s competitors and hinted at an Apple TV set. In a speech at the Goldman Sachs Technology Conference, Cook also provided further details on Apple\'s crackdown on working conditions in its factories following recent PR setbacks.

Cook is fast proving that he can fill the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs\' shoes, with the company doubling its quarterly earnings last month with net profit reaching a record $US13.06 billion, with sales up 73 per cent year on year. Apple is also once again the world\'s most valuable company, with its share price this week breaching the $US500 a share mark for the first time. It is worth more than Google and Microsoft combined and has $US98 billion in cash, which Cook said management was considering what to do with. Tablets to overtake PCs Apple has sold 55 million iPads since the product\'s debut and there are now 170,000 iPad-optimised apps.

Cook described the trajectory of the tablet as \"off the charts\" and said \"I strongly believe that the tablet market will surpass the units sales of the PC market\". \"The reason that it is so large in my view is that the iPad has stood on the shoulders of everything that came before it\" said Cook. \"The iTunes Store was already in play, the App Store was already in play. People were trained on iPhone. They already knew about multitouch. Lots of things that became intuitive when you used a tablet, came from before. I gave one to my mother and she knew how to use it from watching the commercial.\"