George Colony of Forrester Research believes Apple will likely outgrow both IBM and HP in the next 12 months.

They’ll be bigger than IBM next year, and they’ll be bigger than HP the year after that,” Colony said, citing Apple’s 52 percent sales growth last year. At current growth rates “they’re going to be a $200 billion revenue company,” he said.

Hewlett-Packard had sales of $126 billion in the year that ended in October and IBM’s revenue was $99.9 billion last year, making them the largest technology companies, respectively, by sales. Apple ranks No. 1 by market capitalization.

While that prediction may seem ludicrous to some, the rate at which Apple’s iPad, iPhone and Mac product lines are selling suggests it could likely become a reality. We’re not so sure it’s going to happen with a year, but we’ll place our bets that by 2014 Apple will have, at least, surpassed IBM.

[Bloomberg via MacStories]