PC sales up 16.5%, Dell’s the king

LOS ANGELES: Business buying drove personal computer shipments up more than 16 percent in the first quarter in a sign of recovery for the technology industry, researcher International Data Corp. reported.

Dell Inc. retook the market lead from rival Hewlett-Packard Co., while Acer Inc. showed the strongest growth among the top five global manufacturers.

Total shipments worldwide rose to 41.2 million, and the rise of 16.5 percent rise from a year earlier easily beat expectations of around 13.5 percent, IDC said.

"This is the fourth quarter of double-digit growth, and I really think that this is a strong indicator of recovery," said IDC analyst Roger Kay. "We can expect growth rates of this nature for the next year or so. It could be longer."

Dell was the easy winner worldwide, selling 18.6 percent of all PCs and topping by 3 percentage points HP's 15.6 percent, twice the previous peak difference between the companies since HP merged with Compaq in early 2002.

Dell shipments rose more than 28 percent from a year ago to nearly 7.7 million. HP sales rose 15.8 percent to 6.4 million units, but its market share dropped to 15.6 percent from 15.7 percent a year ago.

Consumer-oriented HP was at a disadvantage in the first quarter, when businesses are the main buyers, playing into Dell's corporate-oriented strategy.

But Kay said that Dell's dominance and big lead was a sign Dell was benefiting from more than the time of year. "I'd want to see a couple more quarters of this trend before I said the fight is over," he added.

Corporations were driven to buy new computers after years of making do with older machines and spare parts, IDC said. U.S. shipments rose 15.7 percent, Europe and Middle east shipments rose more than 20 percent, and Japan growth hit nearly 10 percent.

Globally, Acer grew fastest, with sales rising 36.5 percent to 1.38 million units. International Business Machines Corp. followed HP with 2.27 million shipments, a 20.4 percent rise, and Fujitsu Ltd. Fujitsu/Siemens was fourth, increasing unit sales 15.4 percent to 1.89 million.

© Reuters