HP surpasses Dell in Q4 PC shipments

El Segundo (CA) - Dell is about to lose its position as the world’s largest PC vendor, as Hewlett-Packard is rapidly gaining market share. While Dell is struggling to turn the company back into the wind, HP, Lenovo and Acer gained ground in the second half of 2006 and outgrew the market leader by a substantial margin, according to iSuppli.

For the year, Dell kept its first rank with PC shipments growing 4.4% from 37.4 million units to 39.0 million. However, Hewlett-Packard showed a strong performance especially in the second half of the year. Unit shipments surged by 19.2% from 32.1 million to 38.2 million. Lenovo, ranked third, was able to take advantage of the market as well, growing its business 19.1% to 16.6 million units.

However, iSuppli believes that 2006 will go down as the year of HP, with the company racking up impressive market-share gains that allowed it to capture the top ranking in the second half. In the fourth quarter, HP shipped 11.6 million PCs, up 21.1% from 9.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2005. This rise was more than three times higher than the overall PC industry’s average of 6.3% growth during the same period. Dell, on the other hand, was the only top-5 PC OEM to report a decline in fourth-quarter shipments - both sequentially and year-over-year.

The result of HP’s strong showing was a 17.4% market share in Q4, significantly higher than Dell’s 14.5%. Lenovo was also able to gain a few percentage points to 7.1%, according to iSuppli.