USA: The fourth quarter of 2007 was a strong period for the top-tier US PC brands, with Hewlett-Packard Co. continuing to pad its dominance in the global market, Dell Inc. showing signs of a resurgence and Apple Inc. coming on strong, according to iSuppli Corp.

The HP way
In the fourth quarter of 2007, Hewlett-Packard’s global PC shipments rose to 14.6 million units, up 25.5 percent from 11.6 million during the same period in 2006, according to a new preliminary market share estimate. With an impressive sequence of six quarters of worldwide PC shipment leadership, it was no surprise that Hewlett-Packard claimed the No.-1 ranking for worldwide PC shipments for the entire year of 2007.

“Hewlett-Packard has capitalized on its strong channel presence and its strength in the fast-growing notebook PC segment, allowing it to attain and maintain market leadership,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for iSuppli.

Dell moves to higher ground
Fellow U.S.-based competitor Dell saw its fortunes improve considerably in the fourth quarter, with shipments of 11.3 million units, up 17.4 percent over the same quarter in 2006. This compares to 1.5 percent growth during the third quarter. Dell’s shipments were up 14.1 percent compared to the third quarter, the largest percentage increase among the Top-6 brands.

“The upswing in year-over growth compared to the prior quarter and the strong sequential rise in shipments come as encouraging signs of recovery for Dell,” Wilkins said. Dell had been displaced by Hewlett-Packard as the world’s leading PC brand in mid 2006.

Apple shines
After HP and Dell, the next U.S.-based PC OEM in iSuppli’s preliminary rankings is Apple, ranked just below the Top-5 brands at No. 6, a position the company has held since the third quarter of 2007. The company’s total fourth-quarter PC shipments grew 39.3 percent year-on-year, with equally strong growth for its desktop and notebook businesses.

“Apple’s reinvigorated Intel microprocessor-based products obviously are striking a chord with PC buyers,” Wilkins observed.

Total worldwide PC shipments in the fourth quarter amounted to 76.2 million units, up 11.7 percent sequentially and up 14.2 percent from 66.7 million during the same period in 2006.

Gateway breaks out
As a result of its acquisition of Gateway in the fourth quarter, Taiwan-based Acer Inc. achieved the No.-3 ranking, moving ahead of its fellow Asia-based rival, Lenovo of China. When incorporating shipments from Gateway, Acer shipped 7.2 million PCs in the fourth quarter, representing year-on-year growth of 25 percent on a combined basis. Lenovo shipped 5.8 million units, and in the process achieved a year-on-year growth rate of 21.3 percent.

Despite the ranking reshuffle of Acer and Lenovo, Japan’s Toshiba Corp. maintained its position as the fifth-largest PC OEM on a worldwide basis in the fourth quarter, shipping 3.1 million units and achieving year-over growth of 25.3 percent.

Hewlett-Packard’s year
Resulting from its consistently strong performance on a quarterly basis, Hewlett-Packard achieved the No.-1 shipment ranking for the whole year 2007, in the process knocking rival Dell from the top-spot. Hewlett Packard shipped 49.6 million PCs in 2007, a 29.7 percent increase that is more than double the growth rate achieved by the whole PC market.

Dell achieved 2007 PC shipments of 39.7 million, representing growth of 1.7 percent. HP and Dell achieved market shares of 18.5 and 14.8 percent respectively for 2007. Apple’s unit shipments grew 33.6 percent in 2007, giving the company a 2.8 percent share of the global market.

As a result of its acquisition of Gateway, Acer overtook its Chinese rival Lenovo to become the third-ranked PC OEM for 2007 with a market share of 9.1 percent. Lenovo achieved 7.5 percent market share in 2007, rising from 7 percent in 2006. Rounding out the top 5 PC brands was Toshiba, which also had impressive year-over growth of 22.5 percent, giving the company a market share of 4.2 percent.

A year of change
“it was an eventful 2007 for the global PC market,” Wilkins observed. “Dell and Hewlett-Packard swapped places, as did Acer and Lenovo.

Hewlett-Packard went from strength to strength; Dell dug in, created and grew new relationships, and began to show encouraging signs of recovery in second half of the year.”

There were also significant changes in the areas of PC semiconductors. “In PC semiconductors a key event was de-escalation in the aggressive microprocessor pricing from AMD and Intel, along with the emergence of quad-core processors as the next phase of the core-battle between the two suppliers.”

The author is the Editorial Director and Manager, Public Relations, iSuppli