Dell Sales Ranking Rises After Acer Stumbles

Nine months after losing its No. 2 ranking in the global PC sales market, Dell retook the runner-up position in the second quarter of 2010 as rival Acer suffered a sales setback during the period, according to the latest report from market research firm iSuppli.

Dell in the second quarter shipped 10.5 million units worldwide, down a negligible 1.2 percent from 10.7 million units in the first quarter. This gave Dell a 12.8 percent share of global shipments, down from 13.1 percent in the first quarter. However, Acer experienced a 6.2 percent shipment decline in the second quarter, with its shipments falling to 10.2 million units, down from 10.9 million in the first quarter. As a result, Acer's share declined to 12.4 percent, down from 13.3 percent in the first quarter, consumer electronics research from iSuppli indicated.

The firm said Acer's decline was notable given the global PC market's 1.1 sequential rise in the second quarter, with shipments amounting to 82.5 million units, up from 81.6 million in the first quarter. Dell perennially had occupied the runner-up position in the global PC market behind fellow American PC maker Hewlett-Packard, iSuppli's computer comparisons have shown.

"With its product line heavily focused on mobile PCs, Acer's sequential decline in notebook shipments impacted its position at the total PC level more than its competitors, which were able to draw on the upswing in desktop shipments to bolster their total shipments," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst of compute platforms research for iSuppli.

Wilkins said Dell's share of the global PC market had been steadily declining since the second quarter of 2008, when the company accounted for 16 percent of worldwide shipments and held a 6.5 percentage point lead over Acer. However, by the third quarter of 2009, Dell's share had dwindled to 12.9 percent, allowing Acer to slip past and take the world's second place position.

"The second-quarter results show the market-share battle between Dell and Acer is not over and it will continue to rage," Wilkins said. He noted that while shipments declined sequentially for Dell and Acer in the second quarter, both companies achieved robust growth compared with the same period in 2009. Dell's shipments rose 16.7 percent from a year earlier, while Acer's soared by 24.2 percent, as the overall market expanded by 22.8 percent.

Wilkins said Acer's strong performance relative to the second quarter of 2009 was driven by the expanding sales of notebooks, which accounted for about 80 percent of the company's total PC shipments in the second quarter, according to iSuppli notebook research. In contrast, Dell appears to be benefiting on a rebound of corporate demand for desktop PCs and entry-level servers.

The benefits extended as well to other OEMs whose PC shipments include a somewhat equal mix of desktops and notebooks. Desktop PC shipments among the top five desktop PC OEMs grew in the region of 12 to 15 percent. iSuppli's latest worldwide PC forecast calls for unit shipment growth of 15 percent in 2010. The second quarter marked HP's 16th consecutive quarter as the top worldwide PC brand, with a market share of 18.1 percent. 

"For their part, the Top 5 Asian OEMs all delivered strongly, with great performances equaling or surpassing 24 percent year-over growth rates," the report noted. "Lenovo led the Asian OEMs, growing its PC shipments by 47.5 percent from the second quarter of 2009, resulting in a market share increase of 1.7 percent year-over-year."