HP Hops Ahead of Dell in PC Shipment Rankings

By Colleen Taylor -- Electronic News, 10/19/2006 9:30:00 AM

Hewlett-Packard Co. has reclaimed the number one position for worldwide PC shipments in Q3 after nearly three years in rival Dell Inc.'s shadow, according to the latest reports by market research firms Gartner Inc. and International Data Corp. (IDC).

The preliminary statistics from Gartner show that HP's lead over Dell is 110,000 units, while IDC's preliminary results show a narrower 28,000 lead.

Both IDC and Gartner this week reported that Dell's market share slumped in the U.S. and worldwide during Q3. Dell has had a turbulent few months, with fallout from a massive laptop battery recall and an ongoing investigation into its stock options granting practices. For its part, HP posted growth despite its recent courtroom drama from its internal pretexting scandal.

HP posted worldwide PC shipment growth of 15.4 percent year-over-year and currently holds a 16.3 percent market share, according to Gartner. Dell, on the other hand, experienced the lowest year-over-year growth in the company's history, as worldwide PC shipments increased a mere 3.6 percent in Q3 and its worldwide PC market share slipped to 16.1 percent.

"Dell has had some negative publicity recently regarding its battery recall but it is hard to attribute the Q3 results to bad publicity alone," Loren Loverde, director of IDC's worldwide quarterly PC tracker, said in a statement. "Dell will likely be very aggressive in Q4, and we will see how similar battery recalls affect other vendors."  

"HP continues to take better advantage of the faster growth segments such as the consumer market. The company's share trajectory reflects its improvements in operational execution and changes in marketing," Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner Dataquest's client computing markets group, said in a separate statement.

The good news for HP was sullied by a glum quarter for the industry at large, however. The worldwide PC market had a slowdown in Q3 overall, as Q3 shipment growth slipped to 7.9 percent, down from 9.8 percent in Q2 and double-digit growth over the prior three years, according to IDC data. International shipments continued to expand at roughly 11 percent year-on-year, but slow growth in the United States pulled down overall results, IDC continued, with Gartner adding that the last time the U.S. PC market suffered a decline in PC shipments was Q2 2002.

In the Europe, Middle East and African (EMEA) region, PC shipments  totaled 18.5 million units in Q3, a 9.1 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner.

Q3 PC shipments in Asia/Pacific increased 13.7 percent from  Q3 2005, as shipments reached 15.1 million units, Gartner continued, further noting that the Latin American PC market experienced year-over-year growth of 20 percent with shipments totaling 4.6 million units in Q3 and Japan saw Q3 PC shipments decline 3 percent compared to the same period last year with shipments of 3.5 million units.