SHANGHAI, INDIA: PC shipments in the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan, grew 17 per cent in the third quarter as laptop sales surged, and demand from China and Taiwan remained robust, research firm IDC said on Tuesday.

IDC said PC shipments hit 23.4 million units with Lenovo as pack leader in the region with 19.8 per cent market share. Hewlett-Packard was second with 18.3 per cent and Dell and Acer came in third and fourth respectively.

"Even though a lot of the momentum may be coming specifically from China, the enthusiasm should start to spread to the point where the entire region gets off on the right foot next year," Bryan Ma, Director of Asia/Pacific Personal Systems Research at IDC, said in a statement.

IDC also said the launch of Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7, could spur consumers to buy more PCs, such as low cost mini-notebooks and ultrathin notebooks.

The Asia Pacific PC shipments beat forecasts by 9 per cent and grew 18 per cent quarter-on-quarter, the firm said.

Global PC shipments rose 2.3 per cent year on year in the third quarter, with portable personal computers a key growth driver, IDC said.