IDC, Gartner find Q3 PC shipment increases

Spurred by low-priced computers, global shipments of PCs increased more than 17 percent in the third quarter, according to analyst companies IDC and Gartner Inc., which independently released figures from that period on Monday.

Vendor Dell Computer Inc. topped both lists in terms of global shipments and market share, with 18 percent of the market according to IDC and just under 17 percent by Gartner's figures.

Low-cost and portable systems drove the increase, which occurred in spite of higher interest rates and surging oil prices, IDC said. PC market growth for the quarter was "remarkable" and maintained "relative independence from broader economic trends," Loren Loverde, director of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, said in a statement Monday.

Loverde's counterpart at Gartner highlighted home demand for mobile computers as particularly strong in the quarter. Overall market growth was better than expected, said Charles Smulders, vice president of Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide Group.

Aggressive pricing in the U.S. led to shipments that were higher than expected in the desktop market, coupled with continued demand for notebook computers, IDC said. Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in the middle of the quarter and had some effect on the last month of that period, but the larger effect is forecast for the fourth quarter, which has been ushered in by higher fuel costs and a drop in consumer confidence.

Outside of the U.S., European Union expansion, investments in general infrastructure and low prices kept the PC market humming along, while in Japan, new product launches appealed to buyers. In the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan, both business and home purchases of computers remained robust, IDC found.

As for vendors, IDC figures show Dell with global shipments of nearly 9.5 million for the quarter, and with U.S. shipments of 5.6 million. In percentage terms, those figures gave Dell 18 percent market share globally and 33 percent in the U.S., both of which were up slightly over the same period of last year. Year-on-year, Dell had 17.8 percent growth internationally and 12.2 percent growth in the U.S.

Gartner recorded 9.2 million shipments for Dell globally, for a market share of nearly 17 percent, with U.S. shipments of 5.5 million for a 30.7 percent market share.

Second behind Dell for the quarter by both analyst counts was Hewlett-Packard Co., with nearly 8.5 million shipments globally for a 16 percent market share, and 3.45 million U.S. shipments for a 20.3 percent share, according to IDC. HP's international year-on-year growth stood at 17.9 percent and was 10.1 percent in the U.S. Gartner's figures for HP came in just below IDC's but were comparable.

Lenovo Group Ltd. was third in global shipments with just over 4 million for a 7.7 percent market share, according to IDC, and roughly the same shipment number with a 7.4 percent market share by Gartner's count. The company was fourth on IDC's list for U.S. shipments, with 757,000 units for 4.5 percent of the market, and stood at fifth in the U.S. with 751,000 shipments and 4.2 percent of the market according to Gartner. The third quarter was the second one since Lenovo took over IBM Corp.'s PC business.