Asian vendors bash US rivals as PC market enjoys robust Q2

Eastern promise: Asus, Acer and Lenovo excelled in Q2, while HP and Dell grew below market rate

The Asian vendors were the big winners in 2010's second quarter as the global PC market expanded by more than a fifth year on year.

Preliminary figures from Gartner reveal worldwide shipments in Q2 stood at 82.87 million, a rise of 20.7 per cent on the corresponding period last year. The analyst claimed it had only been expecting a 19.3 per cent spike. EMEA shipments were up 21.6 per cent to 24.1 million.

HP remains the world's leading manufacturer. But the vendor's shipments grew at well below the market rate, rising 12.3 per cent year on year to 14.46 million. This gave the firm a 17.4 per cent slice of the market – down 1.4 points on Q2 2009.

Acer, in second spot, continued to gain ground, growing market share by a point to 13 per cent. The Taiwanese firm's shipments grew 31.6 per cent annually to 10.8 million. Third-placed Dell posted shipment growth of 19 per cent, marginally below market rate. The 10.28 million units shipped by the Texan firm gave it 12.4 per cent market share – down a fifth of a point on last year.

Lenovo gained ground in fourth, with market share up almost two points annually to 10 per cent. The firm's Q2 shipments grew 47.2 per cent annually to 8.31 million. Fifth-placed Asus posted the most impressive growth in Q2, with shipments up 78.5 per cent to 4.32 million. The netbook specialist grew market share 1.7 points year on year to 5.2 per cent, nudging ahead of Toshiba in the process.

In EMEA, Acer overtook HP to become the region's leading manufacturer, with D ell an increasingly distant third. Asus soared into fourth place after almost doubling shipments year on year. Toshiba rounded out the top five.

Gartner principal analyst Mitako Kitagawa said that one trend to emerge this quarter was the slowdown in netbook growth. Q2 Shipments were up by less than 30 per cent annually, compared with the 70-plus per cent growth posted in the two preceding quarters.

"This slowdown indicates that mini-notebooks are entering a mature growth stage," she added.

Ranjit Atwal, principal research analyst at Gartner, claimed that the second half of the year would provide more business-to-business sales.

“While the first half of 2010 has been very strong and driven by the consumer PC market, the second half will increasingly be dependent on the business market, and the economic uncertainties and public austerity measures may shift demand into the end of 2010 and even 2011,” he said.