Laptops

United States – Laptops have taken the lead over desktop PCs for the first time in Q3 2008. This development signifies the rising penetration of laptops into the lower market, according to iSuppli Corp.

In Q3 2008, laptop shipments totaled 38.6 million units, a 40 percent increase over the same period last year. Desktop PC shipments, on the other hand, dropped by 1.3 percent y-o-y to 38.5 million units.

The advancement of laptops is attributed to the segment’s growing availability to most people for personal use–expanding beyond the initial business or higher-class market targets of laptops.

Hewlett-Packard is top PC OEM

Despite the pull of a global economic recession, the overall PC market continued to exhibit a positive trend. Global PC shipments grew by 15.4 percent y-o-y with 79 million units sold in Q3 2008. The report estimates the full-year global PC shipment growth to be 13 percent in 2008, and forecasts it to reach 4.3 percent in 2009.

The top performing PC OEMs in the quarter remained to be Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co., Dell Inc., Acer Inc., Lenovo Group and Toshiba Corp. Forerunner HP captured the largest market at 18.8 percent, with its PC shipments reaching 14.8 million units. Dell trailed with 10.9 million units, exhibiting a 10.7 percent y-o-y growth. It accounted for 13.9 percent of the laptop market.

The highest y-o-y growth, however, belonged to Taiwan-based Acer, which registered 78.8 percent and with 9.6 million units shipped. The company produced 3 million more units compared to Q2 2008 for a sequential growth of 45 percent. Most of the additional units were netbooks.

Having produced 5.9 million units, Lenovo secured the fourth spot with 7.5 percent market share. Toshiba ranked fifth with the second highest y-o-y growth of 24.6 percent and 3.6 million units sold in Q3 2008. Its market share stood at 4.6 percent.

Other PC manufacturers accounted for 43 percent of the market with 34 million unit shipments.