Lenovo regains 3rd place in Q2 iSuppli PC supplier rankings

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 9/7/2007

Q2 brought yet another slight shake-up in the global PC market hierarchy, with China-based original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Lenovo Group Ltd. seeing a 22.9 quarter-over-quarter percent boost in shipments that allowed it to regain the number three spot on iSuppli's ranking of the top PC suppliers.

According to iSuppli, Lenovo had the largest increase among the world's Top-5 and Top-10 PC suppliers— marginally ahead of the 17 percent sequential growth achieved by Apple Inc.  

Lenovo and Apple's Q2 gains are especially remarkable, iSuppli said, considering that overall shipments in the market declined sequentially during the period, decreasing by 1.7 percent, or by 1.03 million units.

The increase enabled Lenovo reclaiming the third place position from Acer Inc., which overtook Lenovo in Q1.  In contrast, Acer's PC shipments declined by 0.2 percent during Q2.

However, Lenovo's time at the number three spot seems like it will be short-lived, iSuppli said. According to the firm, Acer's planned acquisitions of Packard Bell and Gateway will cause the company to gain approximately 2.5 percentage points of market share. As a result of the planned acquisitions, Acer is expected to take a firm grip of the third-place position in the coming quarters.

At the very top of the Q2 rankings, Hewlett-Packard Co. cemented its position as the worldwide leader in PC shipments with a 4.4 percent sequential increase, and 35 percent year-over-year increase, to 11.2 million units. HP's market share rose to 18.3 percent, up from 17.2 percent in Q1. Meanwhile, second-ranked Dell Inc. posted a 5.6 percent sequential increase in PC shipments, but a five percent decrease year-over-year.  

iSuppli's latest PC forecast calls for unit growth of 11.7 percent in 2007 compared to 2006.