Research Firms See PC Sales Down Again In Q3

By Doug Olenick On Nov 5 2001 - 8:00am

The six-month long falloff of PC sales continued in the third quarter with only Dell managing to show any growth for the period, according to the research firms Gartner Dataquest and International Data Corp (IDC).

Numbers released in late October by Dataquest and IDC show Dell's market share in the United States grew 5.6 percent to 25, and 5.9 percent to 26.4, respectively. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq and Gateway each saw their shipment numbers tumble by at least one-third, compared to the same period in 2000. Compaq suffered the worst with IDC stating its U.S. PC shipments fell by half and Dataquest being slightly more generous, indicating Compaq was only off 42.7 percent. The firms estimated Compaq, which is in the process of merging with HP, shipped about 1.1 million PCs in the quarter. At the same time the company's market share fell to 10.7 percent from 17.3 percent, but this was still enough for Compaq to remain the second largest PC vendor.

HP, Gateway and IBM rounded out the list of the top five PC vendors on IDC and Dataquest lists.

The already weak PC market was aggravated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks which helped push worldwide PC sales down to about 30 million for the quarter. In the United States about 10 million units were shipped, down from the 13-million level in 2000. This is the second consecutive quarter that PC sales fell.

Dataquest's Preliminary U.S. PC Shipment Leaders, Q3
(Thousands of units)

Company	Q3 2001 Shipments	Q3 2001 Share	Q3 2000 Shipments	Q3 2000 Share	Growth
Dell	2,731	25.0%	2,587	19.2%	5.6%
Compaq	1,280	11.7%	2,234	16.6%	-42.7%
Hewlett-Packard	963	8.8%	1,444	10.7%	-33.3%
Gateway	810	7.4%	1,217	9.0%	-33.5%
IBM	690	6.3%	737	5.5%	-6.3%
Others	4,470	40.8%	5,242	38.9%	-14.7%
Total Market	10,944	100.0%	13,460	100.0%	-18.7%
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs and PC servers. Source: Gartner Dataquest

IDC's Preliminary Top 5 U.S. PC Shipment Leaders, Q3
(Thousands of units)

Company	Q3 2001 Shipments	Q3 2001 Share	Q3 2000 Shipments	Q3 2000 Share	Growth
Dell	2,731	26.4%	2,578	19.7%	5.9%
Compaq	1,108	10.7%	2,258	17.3%	-50.9%
Hewlett-Packard	962	9.3%	1,442	11.0%	-33.2%
Gateway	814	7.9%	1,188	9.1%	-31.5%
IBM	690	6.7%	739	5.6%	-6.7%
Others	4,036	39.0%	4,884	37.3%	-17.4%
All Vendors	10,341	100.0%	13,089	100.0%	-21.0%
Note: Data excludes OEM sales for all vendors. Gateway and Compaq are IDC estimates prior to company release of quarterly results. Source: IDC ©TWICE 2001