Notebook shipments nose past desktops

WORLDWIDE SHIPMENTS of notebook PCs overtook desktops during the third quarter for the first time, industry markets tracking firm Isuppli reported Tuesday.

Fully 38.6 million notebook PCs were shipped in the quarter, up 40 per cent from the same quarter last year, versus shipments of only 38.5 million desktops, a decline of 1.3 per cent.

This development has been expected, because notebook sales have been posting double-digit gains while recent growth of desktop sales has been flattening, down in the low single digits.

The global economic downturn had some effect in the third quarter, but total worldwide PC shipments still increased 15.4 per cent to 79 million boxes. The recession is expected to have an impact on PC sales in 2009, though.

The rankings of the top five PC brands did not change during the quarter. HP still led with 18.8 per cent market share, followed by Dell still in second place with 13.9 per cent, Acer in third with 12.2 per cent, Lenovo fourth with 7.5 per cent and Toshiba fifth at 4.6 per cent.

Acer's sales exploded to ship over 3 million more notebooks than it sold during the second quarter, many of them netbooks, posting 79 per cent growth year over year. Asustek also shipped a lot of netbooks in the quarter to pass Lenovo as the fifth-largest notebook maker. µ