Samsung Displaces Apple, Sony in Mobile PC Rankings

Samsung jumped over both Apple and Sony in the worldwide mobile PC vendor rankings in the first quarter, thanks to netbook sales and the growing preference among both consumers and corporations for mobile PCs over desktops, according to market research firm iSuppli.
With shipments of 1.9 million mobile PCs – a jump of 14.6 percent from just a quarter before – Samsung was able to claim 3.9 percent global market share, displacing Apple and Sony in its climb to seventh place, iSuppli analysts said in their July 6 report.
Also contributing significantly to Samsung’s success, said the firm, were sales to European carriers, which offer Samsung netbooks at subsidized prices, as with smartphones.
“About 50 percent of Samsung’s mobile PC shipments in the first quarter were netbooks,” Matthew Wilkins, an iSuppli principal analyst, said in a statement. “Samsung’s netbooks are enjoying strong sales to European telecommunications operators, as European consumers in the first quarter continued to snap up netbook PCs bundled with mobile broadband contracts.”
With its nearly 15 percent growth, Samsung soundly beat the overall notebook PC market average, which due to normal seasonal factors fell by 5.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009. Still, Samsung was not the very top performer among the top 10 vendors. That accolade went to 10th-place Fujitsu, which posted a 17.6 percent quarterly increase.
The overall top-shipping vendor was again Hewlett-Packard, with 18.9 percent market share, down from 20.3 percent the quarter before. Behind HP was Acer, with 17.5 percent of the market, down from 19 percent a quarter earlier, and, in third place, Dell, with 11.5 percent market share, down from 11.6 the quarter before.
Toshiba, in fourth position, was the only top-five vendor to enjoy quarter-to-quarter growth, grabbing 9.3 percent market share, versus its flat 9 percent the quarter before. Asus, in fifth position, claimed 8.3 percent market share, down from 8.7 percent the quarter before.
“Corporate and consumer demand for notebook PCs remains strong, as user preferences continue to shift away from desktops and toward mobile computers,” Wilkins wrote. “Notebook shipments in the first quarter hit their second-highest quarterly level since iSuppli began tracking the market.”
Given the notebook market’s strong showing, iSuppli raised its 2010 forecast and now expects notebook PC shipments to grow by 29.8 percent, not 25.5 percent, for the year.