HP, Acer Gain in Worldwide PC Shipments

New market numbers from iSuppli show Hewlett-Packard lengthening its lead over Dell in worldwide PC shipments, while Acer takes over the number three spot from Lenovo.

New market research numbers from iSuppli show Hewlett-Packard extending its lead over Dell in worldwide PC shipments during the first quarter of 2007—but the real story may be Taiwan’s Acer, which has taken over the number three spot from China’s Lenovo.

“Acer conquered the No. 3 position in notebook shipments in the fourth quarter, and captured the third position in the overall PC market in the first quarter,” said Matthew Wilkins, iSuppli’s principal analyst for compute platforms. “Acer has momentum, is competing aggressively, and its strong channel presence is clearly paying dividends for both desktop and notebook shipments.”

Acer showed the strongest growth performance among the top five PC makers during the quarter on a year-by-year basis, with PC shipment rising by 45.6 percent to 4.2 million units. Lenovo, conversely, say shipments rise 16.3 percent to almost 4 million units, but those figures weren’t enough to prevent Acer from taking the number three slot.

Hewlett-Packard saw its worldwide shipments increase by 26.5 percent during the quarter to 10.7 million units, accounting for a 17.2 percent market share for the quarter. However, Dell actually saw its year-on-year shipments decline by 6.8 percent, dropping from 9.6 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2006 to 8.8 million units in the first quarter of 2007. Dell was the only one of the top five computer makers to see a decline in shipments, with the drop particularly impacting its desktop computing segment. The company is hoping to boost sales through new retail initiatives, which include selling computers through mega-retailer Wal-Mart.