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.