Dell thumps HP

Dell has reclaimed its title as PC seller extraordinaire.

The Texas-based PC shop knocked Hewlett-Packard out of the top spot for worldwide PC sales in the first quarter of 2003, IDC said. The two companies have jostled for the top spot since HP acquired Compaq last year.

Overall, vendors shipped out 34.6 million PCs , which gives a 2.1 per cent rise over the same quarter last year. Laptops continued to take more of the overall market, helping Toshiba grab the number 5 ranking worldwide and in the U.S.

"The debut of Toshiba in the top 5 heralds the era of mobile computing," said Roger Kay, director of Client Computing at IDC in a statement.

Didn't the era of mobile computing already seem heralded? It announced itself long ago and now progresses with vigor.

I digress.

Asia Pacific continued to be the hottest market with 10 percent shipment growth year-on-year. The U.S. and EMEA made small gains.

McDell dominated the U.S. market, enjoying 23.7 percent growth to capture 31.8 percent of all shipments. HP followed with 19.5 of the market, IBM with 4.8 percent, Gateway with 4.3 percent and Toshiba with 3.2 percent.

In case you are keeping track, the merged HP/Compaq lost 0.8 points of market share.

Dell holds 17.3 percent of the worldwide market on 24.7 percent growth. The merged HP fell from taking 17.1 percent of the market in Q1 2002 down to 15.8 percent this quarter. IBM made slights gains to take 5.4 percent share, Fujitsu-Siemens held 4.8 percent and Toshiba held 3.7 percent. ®