In this context (total numbers shipped) I doubt anyone at this forum matters - or do we have >1.000.000 unit shippers participating?

If you are not using 1.000.000+ units, you do not matter in the statistics Charles mentioned.

They have free Windows IDE assemblers and C programmers compared to 8051 which cost thousands.
Who, shipping 1.000.000+ units, would care one hoot about a few thousands for tools.

Philips is fighting back, The LPC series are pretty much price equivalent to the larger PICs in the interesting volumes.

8-bit microcontroller unit shipments

Of course, to make an 8 pin processor, like the smallest PICs, capable of blinking a LED and not much more in '51 technology would not make sense. So, the fact that PIC has shipped an awful lot of toy processors at an extremely low cost is hardly going to lead to the demise of the '51.

anyhow, with fictional numbers
if Philips ship 100.000.000 units at an average cost of $1 and Microchip ship 120.000.000 units at an average cost of $0.50, who is better off.

Erik