Gartner: Lenovo Overtakes HP as World's Top PC Vendor

Taipei, Oct.17, 2012 (CENS)--Lenovo Group Ltd., the largest Chinese PC maker, grabbed 15.7% of the global market with 13.77 million units shipped in the third quarter, ousting Hewlett-Packard's 15.5% to become the world's largest PC manufacturer, says Gartner Inc., a market research firm.

Both Gartner and IDC's figures show global PC shipments fell more than 8% QoQ during the quarter, mainly hurt by low-priced tablet PCs and slowing global economy, as well as a “transitional quarter” ahead of the launch of Win8. Lenovo and Taiwan's Asus Computer Inc. are the only two PC vendors enjoying growths.

However, research firm IDC's data still put HP at the top of market share globally, shipping 13.9 million units with a 15.9% share, compared with Lenovo which hit a 15.7% share with 13.8 million units.

Despite slowing growths in Asia, Lenovo is likely to gain further market share with aggressive price cuts and mergers worldwide, becoming the top five vendors in U.S for the first time in the third quarter.

HP, the original leader in the market, is now under reconstruction of PC, tablet, and printer business, with PC shipments in the quarter suffering a 16% decline from the same period of 2011, facing challenges in balancing market share and profits.

Benefiting from the success of “Transformer” series and “Nexus 7” co-developed with Google Inc., Asus saw PC market share raise to 7.3% globally in the third quarter, with shipments increasing more than 10% from a year earlier. On the contrary, Acer Inc., another renowned Taiwanese PC maker, saw shipments decline 6.7% quarter on quarter.

With the upcoming Win8, an industrial insider noted that the Win8-effect would start from the first quarter of 2013, while IDC indicated that Win8 would still benefit PC market in the fourth quarter of 2012. However, with growing popularity of tablets and unclear global economic climate, there is still a significant uncertainty how Win8 will greet the PC industry.