HP recaptures lead from Dell in notebook shipments

Austin (TX) - Following news that Hewlett-Packard (HP) has shipped more PCs than its rival Dell in the third quarter of this year, DisplaySearch today said that it believes that HP has also captured the lead in the quickly growing notebook PC segment.

According to the market research firm’s report released today, both HP and Dell were able to ship more than 3.5 million notebooks during the quarter, with HP outpacing Dell by just about 50,000 units. Key to HP taking the lead was quarter-over-quarter growth of 36%, according to DisplaySearch. This translates into almost twice the average market growth in Q3 2006 (19%). Dell held the lead in this segment from Q4 2005 to Q2 2006.

If the overall PC shipment and notebook segment shipment estimates are accurate, notebook shipments of both HP and Dell are now exceeding one third of total PC shipments : According to the numbers released, HP’s notebook shipments account for about 35% of the product mix, while Dell’s notebook shipments are approaching a 36% share.

While HP overtaking Dell on a worldwide basis is a significant event, it is worth mentioning that HP came out on top spot in only two regional geographies - in Asia Pacific and Latin America. Dell led HP in North America by more than 6% market share, and Acer surpassed HP in EMEA by more than 4% share, DisplaySearch said.

HP held a 17.7% market share in the global notebook market in Q3, followed by Dell with 17.5%, Acer with 11.8%, Toshiba with 10.7% and Lenovo with 8.2%.

An interesting development is that neither HP nor Dell were able to keep pace with the worldwide 29% year-over-year growth in the notebook segment. Of the top six brands, only Acer out-paced the market, growing at 49%. Smaller brands have had the most dramatic growth, with Asus growing at 68%, Apple at 63% and Sony at 47%.

Wide-screen notebooks continue to conquer retail shelves, with Apple and Sony exclusively selling such devices. DisplaySearch said that 98% of Acer and Gateway notebooks sold had wide form factor displays. Of the top five brands, Lenovo was the only company that ships far more standard aspect notebook PCs, with less than 15% of its notebook PC shipments using wide displays.