The global PC market grew by 15 per cent last year, according to market research organisation Dataquest. That growth was led by the West, with the European and US markets accounting for 65 per cent of all PCs sold. However, the company's parent, the Gartner Group, warned that Dataquest's figures were only based on "preliminary" data -- it is holding to the final numbers in the hope of flogging more tickets to an upcoming conference organised by the Group. Still, even "preliminary" figures give a reasonable picture of the performance of the industry's leading vendors. The figures below are based on the unit shipments, and are for PCs only, including notebooks, desktops and the like, but excluding servers. Compaq retained its market-topping position thanks to a 20.7 per cent increase in sales through the year. That left it with 13.8 per cent of the market, well up on IBM's 8.2 per cent. Big Blue also retained its chart position, number two, but its share fell 9.5 per cent. Dell saw the biggest growth: 64.9 per cent; Hewlett-Packard's shipments grew by 25.5 per cent. Both companies ended up in third and fourth place, respectively, with shares of 7.9 and 5.8 per cent each. Again, this left them with the same market positions as they scored in 1997. That was also true of Packard Bell-NEC, whose share fell from five per cent to 4.3 per cent. According to Dataquest VP Bill Schaub, Dell has now posted 13 consecutive quarters of 50 per cent growth. Notably, Apple's recent success with the iMac clearly wasn't enough to push it into the top five. Given the above-average growth experienced by Compaq, Dell and HP, that suggests the sales Apple gained throughout the last half of 1998 weren't at the expense of those vendors. The 'Others' category, which notched up a 60.1 per cent share, includes every assembler and its dog, and this figure is likely to please the distribution channel in particular. ®