The Test Center highlights noteworthy PC components that came through the lab so far this year. Manufacturers' ability to build components that support both quad- and dual-core hardware platforms continues to impress us.
Acer's latest Aspire Gemstone laptops come just in time for the holiday shopping blitz, targeting consumers with a range of entertainment-focused models.
It's been a busy quarter for shakeups in some of the industry's top channel companies. Here we look at several channel executives who have come and gone in the last few months.
iSuppli: HP Keeps Crushing Dell in Worldwide PC Market Share
8:30 AM EST Thu. Nov. 29, 2007
The El Segundo, Calif.-based firm said that HP shipped 13.1 million PCs in the third quarter of 2007, a staggering 32.7 percent increase from the 9.9 million PC units it shipped during the same period a year earlier. But Dell still lagged and much of the industry's growth has passed it by, iSupply said in a statement.
"Dell underperformed the market with meager growth of 1.5 percent. Dell shipped 9.9 million PCs worldwide in the third quarter of 2007, compared to 9.8 million during the same period in 2006," the firm said. "(Dell) market share fell to 14.6 percent in the third quarter, down from 16.3 percent a year earlier. Dell posted the weakest growth among the Top-5 PC OEMs during the third quarter."
iSupply analyst Matthew Wilkins attributed Dell's sluggishness largely to the fact that its channel expansion plans have yet to take off. In addition to HP's competition, iSupply said Acer, Taipei, Taiwan, shipped more notebook PCs than Dell during the quarter. Wilkins said Acer's performance in the channel during the quarter was strong, and that the company remained price aggressive.
Overall, HP, Palo Alto, Calif., led in worldwide PC market share with 19.2 percent of global shipments; Dell was next at 14.6 percent; Lenovo, Raleigh, N.C., was third with 8.1 percent worldwide PC market share; followed by Acer at 7.9 percent and Toshiba at 4.3 percent, according to iSuppli.
The research firm's numbers come out on a day when Dell, Round Rock, Texas, is slated to release earnings for its most recent quarter. Top executives from Dell, including Chairman and CEO Michael Dell and CFO Donald Carty are also set to take questions from reporters and analysts in a conference call following their earnings announcement; due to internal accounting investigations over much of the past year, Dell executives had refused to take any questions following their quarterly earnings reports. Dell directors finished their probe in August and Dell has since restated some of its earnings going back several years.
But the news about Dell's slow PC growth is not the only piece of bad news the company has received of late. According to another research firm, DisplaySearch, Austin, Texas, Samsung surpassed Dell in LCD shipments in the third quarter to overtake the PC maker in worldwide market share of displays. It was the first time Dell was lot listed as the LCD market share leader globally since 2002.
During its most recent quarter, HP said its annual revenue climbed to $104 billion and revenue from its Personal Systems Group, which includes PCs, topped $10 billion.
