IDC ranks Acer as number one in Europe

Analyst second in a week to report Acer's rapid climb to number one position

The booming netbook market has propelled Acer to the number one position in Europe for the third quarter 2008, according to IDC.

Also benefiting from the boom in demand was Asus, which shot into fourth place on the back of its strong Eee PC launch this year. The top five vendors in order were Acer, HP, Dell, Asus and Toshiba, according to the analyst firm

IDC’s findings back up earlier research from Gartner, which reported that Acer had knocked HP off the top spot in EMEA (Channelweb, 15 October).

According to IDC’s figures, notebooks continued to drive overall PC market growth, increasing by 52 per cent. Total PC shipments increased by 27 per cent compared to Q3 2007.

Karine Paoli, associate vice president for IDC’s EMEA personal computing research, said: “"This quarter benefited not only from continued and robust consumer demand for mainstream notebooks as anticipated, but also from an acceleration and confirmation of the uptake of the new "Mini Notebook" segment with the proliferation of low-cost ultra portable products and deals through telco operators which contributed to boost consumer demand further."

Eszter Morvay, senior research analyst for IDC’s EMEA PC Tracker, said: “" Although the retail channel remained the primary route-to-market to reach consumers, mini notebook volumes were further boosted by the rising number of telco deals across several countries, enticing customers with free laptops bundled with mobile broadband, benefiting Asus and Acer in particular.

“While the retail shelves were dominated by Asus in the first half of the year, the competition heated up over the summer months with Acer deploying strong push across the region. The appealing product design coupled with the right price point earned Asus and Acer a combined market share of over 80 per cent in this rapidly expanding market. Mini notebooks are clearly shaking up the competitive landscape, which is likely to get even more fierce in the pre-Christmas season with several vendors launching products from October, and potentially pushing mini notebooks volumes in EMEA towards the four million range in Q4 2008,” she added.