HP Dominates Q1 Worldwide PC Shipments

Market analysis firm Gartner has released its figures for personal computer shipments during the first quarter of 2007…and the news is not good for Dell.

According to Gartner, Hewlett-Packard shipped more than 11 million desktop, mobile, and server PCs during the first quarter of the year, accounting for 17.6 percent of the worldwide PC market. Year-on-year, HP’s numbers represent a 28.7 percent increase in market share. In comparison, Dell saw its year-on-year share of the worldwide PC market drop by 7.8 percent, shipping almost 8.7 million units where it shipped 9.4 million in units in the same quarter of 2006. On the world stage, Acer outsold Lenovo to take over the number three slot with 4.3 million units sold; Lenovo managed almost 4 million units, and Toshiba moved almost 2.6 million systems. Overall, worldwide PC shipments during the first quarter of 2007 increased 8.9 percent over the same quarter in 2006, and totalled some 62.7 million machines.

In the United States market, Dell still managed to hold on to its status as number one computer seller…but just barely, and the trend certainly isn’t good for the Round Rock, Texas, computer maker. According to Gartner, Dell managed to secure a 27.9 percent share of the U.S. computer market during the first quarter, but that represents a year-on-year decline of 15.5 percent: Dell sold 4.1 million systems to U.S. customers during the quarter, compared to 4.9 million systems in the first quarter of 2006. Meanwhile, HP is right on Dell’s heels, with a year-on-year improvement o 25.8 percent during the first quarter, selling 3.8 million systems compared to 3 million a year ago. HP now accounts for 25.7 percent of the U.S. computer market, and if current trends continue, HP will soon take over as the top U.S. computer maker.

In the U.S., Gateway managed to move over 1.1 million systems during the first quarter; Toshiba sold 805,000 and Apple moved 741,000 systems; the numbers represent a downturn for Gateway (which say its share of the market decline year-on-year by 6.3 percent) but represent gains for Toshiba and Apple, which say their year-on-year shares grwo by 26.8 and 30 percent, respectively. The entire U.S. PC market grew by 2.9 percent during the first quarter of 2007, compared to the first quarter of 2006.

Although Gartner emphasizes these figures are preliminary, the company notes that Microsoft’s release of Windows Vista had a "very limited" impact on worldwide PC shipments.