Acer Closes In On Dell As 2nd-Largest PC OEM In ’09

By Doug Olenick -- TWICE, 3/22/2010

El Segundo, Calf. — Dell barely hung onto its place as the world’s second-largest PC OEM in 2009, as Acer is now within a fraction of a percentage point of displacing the Round Rock, Texas, company.

iSuppli’s 2009 Worldwide Top PC OEM Market Share report gave Acer 12.7 percent of the market on 38.4 million units shipped, while Dell was credited with 12.9 percent of the market on 38.9 million units shipped.

When just considering the fourth quarter, Acer did bypass Dell with 13.4 percent share to Dell’s 12.2 percent. This happened despite Dell managing to post a 5.3 percent increase in units shipped. However, this increase was overwhelmed by Acer’s 28.9 percent. All others also showed massive growth, with Lenovo leading the way with a 43.1 percent increase.

Matthew Wilkins, iSuppli’s principal analyst, compute platforms research, expects Acer to fully surpass Dell in 2010. He added, Dell does have the ability to regain its former stature in the industry, but this would not be an easy task due to Acer’s very strong upward momentum.

Wilkins pointed to two areas where Acer was able to grab share from Dell.

“In our fourth quarter 2009 data, Acer showed resilience with its desktop shipments (down 4.7% year over year) whereas the desktop segment as a whole showed a decline of 6.0% year over year. Dell, by way of comparison, experienced an 8.7% year over year decline in desktop shipments,” he said.

In the notebook category, Wilkins said, Dell has not capitalized on this surging segment as well as Acer. In 2009 Acer’s notebook shipments grew 38.7 percent compared to Acer’s 18.9. Overall the notebook category grew 35.1 percent, according to iSuppli figures, he said.

While Acer and Dell battled for second place, Hewlett-Packard easily retained its worldwide No. 1 spot for 2009 by a healthy margin. The company had 19.7 percent of the market on 56.6 million units shipped.

Lenovo and Toshiba filled out the remaining two spots with 8.2 percent and 5.1 percent of the market, respectively.

In 2009, Dell saw its share fall 9.9 percent, while Acer was up 21 percent. HP grew a healthy 7.4 percent. Lenovo and Toshiba posted very healthy double-digit growth as well.

2010 PC Shipments To Jump 20%: Gartner

STAMFORD, CONN. — Gartner has again boosted is 2010 worldwide PC shipment forecast, with unit shipments expected to increase almost 20 percent.

Gartner expects 366.1 million units to
ship this year, up from the 305.8 million
units that shipped in 2009. Spending on
PCs will rise 12.2 percent to $245 billion.
The research firm's December 2009 prediction
anticipated a 13.3 percent shipment
increase. Spending was expected
to be just above flat, at 1.9 percent.