Apple, Dell Benefit from PC Market Growth

New figures from Gartner show the world's PC market grew significantly in the second quarter of 2008 - and Apple and Dell certainly benefitted.

Preliminary figures from research firm Gartner on worldwide PC sales during the second quarter of 2008 found that shipments totaled some 71.9 million units, a 16 percent increase from the same quarter a year ago. And while mobile PCs lead the way in terms of unit growth, both Dell and Apple saw significant increased in overall sales, although Hewlett-Packard remained at the top of the worldwide heap.

According to Gartner, HP accounted for 18.1 percent of the worldwide PC market during the second quarter, with Dell accounted for 15.6 percent, ACer accounted for 9.4 percent, Lenovo garnered 7.8 percent, and Toshiba accounted for 4.4 percent.

The U.S. PC market grew at a slower rate, showing 4.2 percent year-to-year growth owing to challenging economic conditions and being a fundamentally more-saturated market. HP was the top player in the U.S. market as well, accounting for 31.9 percent of sales during the quarter, with Dell coming in second with 25.3 percent. But the surprise was Apple, which according to Gartner accounted for 8.5 percent of PCs sold during the quarter, a 34 percent increase from its 6.4 percent U.S. market share a year ago. Acer and Toshiba actually lost ground year-to-year, dipping from 10.6 to 8.1 percent and 5.6 to 5.5 percent, respectively. Acer’s slide may be particularly disappointing to the company, which had hoped to increase its share of the U.S. market with its acquisition of U.S. computer maker Gateway last year.

Gartner notes that mini-notebooks—things like the Asus Eee—accounted for less than three percent of all notebooks sold in the U.S., although they did represent a significant share of the Japanese market during the quarter.