Lenovo World’s Top PC Shipper

Doug Olenick On Oct 11 2012 - 9:35am

New York – Hewlett-Packard took the unusual step of refuting an industry research report that stated the troubled PC powerhouse had lost its first place ranking in computer shipments.

Gartner’s third-quarter worldwide PC shipment report placed Lenovo at the top, displacing HP. However, Gartner’s competitor IDC had HP holding onto the top spot by the thinnest of margins.

In response to Gartner’s figures, HP issued the following statement.

“While there are a variety of PC share reports in the market, some don’t measure the market in its entirety. The IDC analysis includes the very important workstation segment and therefore is more comprehensive. In that IDC report, HP occupies the No. 1 position in PCs.”

For the third quarter Gartner stated Lenovo had 15.7 percent of the worldwide market shipping 13.8 million units. This is the first time Lenovo has been awarded the world’s top PC shipper.

HP came in with 15.5 percent of the market on 13.55 million units shipped. During the same period in 2011, HP had shipped 16.2 million units for a 17 percent market share, while Lenovo had just 13.1 percent on 12.5 million units shipped.

IDC had HP shipping 13.9 million units for 15.9 percent of the market with Lenovo right behind, shipping 13.8 million units, for 15.7 percent of the market.

In the U.S. market, HP was still the largest computer shipper by a wide margin on both the IDC and Gartner reports.

Overall, the PC market declined dramatically in the U.S. during the third quarter. IDC had shipments decreasing 12.4 percent while Gartner saw a 13.8 percent falloff. HP, Dell, Apple and Acer all shipped fewer units, with Lenovo being the lone bright spot on each report.

"We expected a weak PC market in the lead up to Windows 8 release in the fourth quarter. While the industry has been focused on shaving excess inventory and preparing to launch a new generation of products, consumers have been looking at alternative devices like tablets. In addition, businesses have slowed their refresh cycle as they remain concerned about the broad economic outlook, amid a busy political season," said David Daoud, research director, personal computing, at IDC.

Gartner’s Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said retailers’ conservative order placement during the quarter helped lead to the decline. Kitagawa said this trend was a direct result of a weaker-than-expected back-to-school selling season.