Acer, After Acquisitions, Passes Dell in Notebook Market Share

The data released by DisplaySearch show Acer and its new units shipped 4.7 million notebooks during the third quarter of 2007, compared to 4.01 million for Dell, Round Rock, Texas. The news puts further pressure on Dell in its turnaround strategy. Until last year, Dell was the world's number 1 PC maker, but lost that title to Hewlett-Packard and has been losing market share to HP ever since.

Last week, in providing details of its corporate strategy, Dell executives described the notebook segment as one of the critical areas on its roadmap and described the segment as at a "tipping point." The numbers from DisplaySearch indicate continued pressure on Dell in that very segment. The firm's numbers showed Dell's worldwide notebook shipments growing at 12 percent year over year, while Acer, counting in Gateway and Packard Bell, grew at 42 percent.

HP, Palo Alto, Calif., remained the world's Number 1 notebook manufacturer, with 6.22 million notebooks shipped during the third quarter for a whopping 72 percent growth, year over year, according to Austin, Texas-based DisplaySearch.

In North America, DisplaySearch found HP also remained Number 1 with 25 percent market share.

Overall, HP's worldwide notebook market share registered 21.4 percent; Acer's combined share was 16.2 percent; Dell's was 13.8 percent; Toshiba's was 9.1 percent; Lenovo was 8.9 percent; Sony was at 5.6 percent market share; Fujitsu-Siemens at 4.7 percent; Apple registered 4.6 percent market share and Asus 4.2 percent, according to DisplaySearch.

The firm found Apple shipped 1.35 million Mac-based notebooks and grew at 36 percent, year over year, on a worldwide basis.