Report: U.S. PC Market Stages Comeback

IDC estimated total shipments for last year in the United States to be more than 52.7 million units, up 10.8 percent from the 47.6 million units shipped in 2002. IDC defines the PC market to include desktop PCs, notebook PCs and x86-based servers, but does not include handhelds.

Dell solidified its lead in the U.S. market by shipping 16.3 million units, or 30.9 percent of the entire market, according to IDC. This was up from 13.3 million units in 2002. No. 2 Hewlett-Packard also saw sales increases, but less dramatically, hitting 10.9 million units in 2003 compared with 9.3 million units in 2002.

Rounding out the top five U.S. vendors in 2003 were IBM, with 2.7 million units; Gateway, with 2.0 million units; and Apple, with 1.7 million units, IDC said.

Sales in the fourth quarter of 2003 provided a major boost for the entire year. IDC estimated that a total of 14.5 million units were shipped into the United States in the fourth quarter of 2003, up more than 15 percent from the 12.7 million units shipped in the same period last year. Dell took first place in the quarter with 4.4 million units, followed by HP, IBM, eMachines and Gateway.

Worldwide, HP regained the lead over Dell in the fourth quarter, shipping 7.5 million units compared with its rival's total of 7.2 million units, according to IDC. They were followed by IBM, Fujitsu and Fujitsu Siemens, and Toshiba to round out the top five.

HP's resurgence in the fourth quarter was not quite enough to give it bragging rights as the worldwide PC sales champ. Dell sold the most PCs in 2003, with shipments totaling 25.8 million units compared witho HP's 25 million units.

Worldwide, businesses and consumers bought 152.6 million PCs in 2003, up 11.4 percent from the 136.9 million they bought in 2002, IDC said.