Gartner: HP Still Tops in Global PC Sales

New figures from market research firm Gartner find that in the third quarter of 2008, Hewlett-Packard remained the top seller of PCs in the worldwide market, shipping almost 14.8 million PCs and grabbing 18.4 percent of the worldwide market. Overall, HP saw a 15.1 percent year-on-year growth in worldwide PC shipments, on track with an overall 15 percent increase in the worldwide PC market compared to last year.

“[The] global PC market finally felt the impact from global economic downturn.” said Gartner principal analyst Mika Kitagawa, in a statement. “The Asia/Pacific PC market was impacted by a slowdown in China. PC growth in Latin America was slow relative to historical levels, but it was still in line with the forecast.”

Worldwide, HP was followed by Dell with almost 11 million units, Acer with just over 10 million units, Lenovo with almost 5.9 million units, and Toshiba with almost 3.8 million units. All other manufacturers combined accounted for 43.7 percent of the market in the third quarter, moving just under 31.2 million PCs.

In the U.S., the story was a little different: Dell came out on top with over 5.1 million units sold, with HP coming in second with almost 4.5 million units. Apple came in third with 1.65 million units sold, with Acer (which now includes Gateway) right on its heels with 1.5 million units. The Figures give Dell nearly 30 percent of the U.S. market for the quarter, with HP capturing almost 26 percent. Year-on-year, however, Apple saw the strongest growth, posting a 29.4 percent increase in sales over the same quarter a year ago. However, all the top five PC sellers in the U.S. market saw increases during the quarter.

“In the North America market, the economic crunch created more interest in the sub $500 segment,” Ms. Kitagawa said. “Because the mini-notebook is still a new segment, it is too early to determine if the emerging segment created new market opportunities, or if it cannibalized lower priced systems.”