Dell Losing More Ground to HP in Worldwide PC Market

In the third quarter of 2007, Dell lost further ground to HP in the global PC market, according to numbers supplied by market-research firm iSuppli.

HP’s gains, which saw it increase its quarterly market share from 16.5 percent in the same quarter last year to 19.1 percent this year, were attributed to a strong network of resellers and a focus on faster-growing notebook PCs over desktop models. Despite recent efforts to right its ship, Dell was slower than some PC vendors to adapt to changing demand patterns, both in terms of how and what consumers and business customers wanted to buy.

Many observers believe Dell is getting its house in order on the PC front, but chronic decline takes take to arrest, much less reverse. Dell’s market share in the quarter fell to 14.6 percent from 16.3 percent in the corresponding period a year earlier. It’s unit shipments grew just 1.5 percent relative to the same quarter last year.

Acer, a result of its acquisition of Gateway and its relatively successful notebook strategy, is seen to be moving past Lenovo and into third place in the current quarter.