New York – The newly combined Hewlett-Packard/Compaq managed to nudge out Dell to take over as top worldwide PC vendor for the second quarter, but Dell was still first in the U.S. market, according to industry research firm Gartner Dataquest.
Overall the PC market suffered a small fall off for the quarter with U.S. shipments decreasing 0.8 percent and 0.6 percent worldwide. Dataquest analyst Charles Smulders blamed bloated inventory levels and lower consumer spending for the dip, but saw a bright spot in the expanded corporate computer spending that took place during the period.
In the U.S. Dataquest had Dell shipping 2.9 million units, up 15.8 percent from the second quarter 2001 for 27.7 percent of the market. HP was distant second shipping 1.9 million for 18.4 percent. Despite gaining Compaq’s entire share, the company shipped 14.6 percent fewer units. IBM scratched out a 2.6 percent increase on 663,000 units shipped for a 6.1 percent share, while Gateway was pummeled suffering an 18.4 percent with its shipments falling to 651,000. The elimination of Compaq enabled Apple to make an appearance in the top five on its 456,000 units shipped, which gave it 4.3 percent of the market.
The ‘other’ category was basically flat for the quarter but comprises 37 percent of the market on 3.9 million units shipped.
Worldwide HP, which shipped 4.6 million units, held a half-percent market share lead over Dell with 15.5 percent, despite suffering a 16.1 fall off in units shipped. Dell shipped 4.4 million units, up 13 percent, while third and fourth place IBM and NEC each lost about 9 percent of its share during the quarter. Toshiba posted a healthy 5.5 percent increase shipping 896,000 units for 3 percent of the market, while Sony had the best quarter with unit shipments increasing 23.7 percent to 830,000.
The worldwide ‘other’ category increased 1.7 percent to 16 million units and it now owns almost 54 percent of the market.
