Analysis: HP's growth slows, Dell picks up steam in Q2

Tag : DELL
But now it appears the battle may be joined, as new sales data fromhardware analysis firm iSuppli indicates that, at least betweenApril and June of this year, HP wasn't the fastest car in the race.Its pace slowed a bit -- not a lot, but measurably -- while Dellturned it up to "full rich."
With the onset of the global economic crisis not having yet hit thecountry in Q2, Dell's worldwide PC unit shipments grew to over 11.2million units -- 21% more than Dell shipped in Q2 of 2007. HP ledthe way for the second quarter, however, as it has since the thirdquarter of 2006, with just under 13.4 million units shippedworldwide, a growth rate of 19.6% annually.
That's still an amazing rate of growth by any measure, but that'sdown from the first quarter by 3.7%. Dell's growth accelerated inthe same period by 1%.
The change-up helped Dell recapture some badly needed market share,gaining 0.7% of global shipments over the previous quarter and 0.9%over Q2 2007, to 16%. HP gained a fraction of market share too:just 0.3% over the previous quarter, to 19.1%.
Analysts at iSuppli credit Dell's repairing its relationships withits retail and channel sellers (it didn't used to sell retail atall, if you'll recall), as well as having overtaken Acer innotebook shipments, reclaiming the #2 spot there. That's actuallyquite amazing, since it was Acer that was banking its entireworldwide expansion program on the success of new models,especially in the Middle East markets where it has such success.
So if HP and Dell both gained, who lost? In a quarter marked by 14%overall shipment growth -- two percent more than was generallypredicted, and certainly extremely healthy by any measure -- theanswer is..."Other." Everyone else other than the world's top PC producers dropped a point and a half ofcollective market share in just one quarter, and 2.2% in one year'stime. Acer -- iSuppli's #3 producer, which now incorporates PackardBell, Gateway, and eMachines brands as well -- was the only marketshare loser in the top five in Q2, dropping just 0.1% over theprevious quarter to 9.5%, shipping 6.65 million units worldwide.
Number four Lenovo had the slowest growth of the top five, withshipments up 14.4% annually to 5.57 million -- still above theglobal average rate of growth. Toshiba, which unveiled several newnotebook models over the spring, surged 23.9% in unit sales toreach 3.18 million.
Any hit to PC shipments on account of the global financial crisiswill probably be recorded at the tail end of Q3, and those numbersmay probably be tallied and assessed as soon as late November.