Compaq loses out to rivals in PC share

Compaq's troubles have been further highlighted this week as two market researchers claimed the vendor lost market share to its main rivals last quarter.

Although it retained its number one position for the first quarter ended 31 March, figures released this week by Dataquest and IDC listed Compaq as having lost out in the US and worldwide, against gains made by Dell and IBM. Hewlett Packard saw a slight decline.

IDC's figures, which include servers, showed Compaq ahead with 14.5 per cent of the world PC market, but down from 14.9 per cent of the total market a year ago.

Dell had 10 per cent of the market, up from 7.8 per cent. IBM had an 8.9 per cent share, up from 8.1 per cent. HP had 6.5 per cent, down from 6.6 per cent last year.

According to Dataquest, which does not include servers in its data, Compaq had 13.4 per cent share of the world PC market in the first quarter, down from 14.3 per cent.

By contrast, Dell had a 9.2 per cent stake, against 7.2 per cent a year ago. IBM had an 8.4 per cent stake, from 7.5 per cent, while HP had 6 per cent of the market, a decline from its share of 6.2 per cent a year ago.