HP overtakes Dell in worldwide PC market

Hewlett-Packard snatched the top position in global PC shipments from rival Dell by a slight margin in the third quarter.

That's the finding market researchers Gartner and IDC reported separately Wednesday when they released their respective quarterly studies on the PC market.

This is the first time HP has earned top honors since the fourth quarter of 2003, Gartner said. Gartner estimates that HP shipped 9.652 million units, or 16.3 percent of the total, while Dell shipped 9.541 million, or 16.1 percent.

IDC called it closer, estimating 9.831 million units for HP and 9.803 million units for Dell, both equivalent to a 17.2 percent market share and a "statistical tie," the firm said in a statement.

The two market researchers calculated HP's growth, compared with last year's third quarter, at slightly over 15 percent, and both put Dell's growth at 3.6 percent.

They differed on the rate of growth worldwide for the entire market compared with last year's third quarter. IDC said shipments grew 7.9 percent to about 57 million units, slower than the 9.8 percent growth rate in the second quarter. Meanwhile, Gartner put the growth at 6.7 percent, or about 59 million units.

Both market researchers ranked Lenovo Group in third place, with IDC estimating its market share at 7.8 percent and Gartner placing it at 7.5 percent. Both firms said Lenovo's shipments grew at around 10 percent. Acer Inc. took fourth place in both studies with around 6 percent of shipments. IDC put Acer's growth at 34.3 percent and Gartner estimated it at 33.4 percent. Finally, Toshiba finished in fifth place with around 4.2 percent of shipments although IDC put its growth at 20.4 percent and Gartner estimated it at 30.5 percent.

International shipments continued to expand at a roughly 11 percent year over year, but slow growth in the U.S. pulled down overall results, IDC said.

The market researchers differed slightly on the U.S. market, but both found shipments fell. IDC put the U.S. drop at less than 1 percent, while Gartner estimated it at 2 percent. IDC said Dell's share shrunk by 6.7 percent, while Gartner put the fall at just over 7 percent. Dell ranked first on both studies, with close to a third of all shipments. HP came in second, with market share of 22 percent in IDC's study and 23 percent in Gartner's. IDC put HP's growth at almost 7 percent and Gartner estimated it at 6.3 percent.

IDC's study includes shipments of desktop, notebook, ultraportable and x86 server PCs, but not handhelds. Gartner's includes desktop PCs, mobile PCs and x86 servers, and excludes workstations.