Market research firm IDC posted third quarter results for the personal computer industry which show that Dell has regained the number one spot in total computer shipments, out-shipping competitor Hewlett-Packard by 3.5 percent. Apple ranked fifth on the list, with its year-over-year growth dropping slightly.
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Dell’s market share for the third quarter of 2002 came in at 29.2 percent based on shipments of more than 3.5 million machines. By comparison, HP shipped about 2.2 million systems for a market share of about 18.9 percent. That’s a 29 percent improvement year-over-year for Dell, and a two percent drop for HP. IDC said that Dell was most successful in the U.S. market due to its efforts to attract consumers. The company maintained double-digit growth in all major regions.
The news isn’t all bad for HP. IDC also said that the company has improved growth “dramatically” from the second quarter and appears to be overcoming problems related to its merger with Compaq “fairly quickly.” Slow commercial sales hindered IBM’s performance during the quarter, according to IDC, which was beat out for overall market share by Gateway.
Apple brought up the rear of the pack with shipments of roughly 462,000 units for the quarter. That’s a 3.8 percent marketshare, or a 5.3 percent drop from the same quarter a year ago, when the company had a 4.3 percent marketshare. IDC attributes this to tough competition in education and slow sales of Power Mac G4s. IDC noted positively that “total sales through Apple’s retail outlets jumped 70 [percent] from the prior quarter,” as well.
All in all, Q3 was tough for most major computer makers on the list except Dell. HP, Gateway, IBM and Apple all saw negative year-over-year marketshare growth for the third quarter.