Lenovo passes Dell as No. 2 PC brand worldwide

Aly Song / Reuters file

Customers talk to a salesperson about a new laptop at a Lenovo shop in Shanghai earlier this year.

By Suzanne Choney

Chinese PC maker Lenovo surpassed Dell to become the world's second-largest PC brand in the third quarter, with HP still retaining the top spot, according to IHS.

While PC sales have been sluggish in the United States, Lenovo "continues to capitalize on strong demand for PCs in its home market of China,? said Matthew Wilkins, IHS principal analyst for compute platforms research. ?While PC sales in the United States, Europe and many other regions are suffering because of weak economic conditions and rising competition from media tablets, desktop and notebook sales remain red hot in China. This is allowing Lenovo to outgrow its U.S. rivals ? and putting it in position to contend with HP for market leadership.?

Earlier this year, HP said that it was considering spinning off its PC division, then changed its mind.

Lenovo?s global PC shipments in the third quarter totaled 12.5 million units, up 14.5 percent from 10.9 million in the second quarter, IHS said. "This strong growth dramatically exceeded the growth of the overall PC market, which expanded by only 5.5 percent during the same period, causing Lenovo?s share of global shipments to rise to 13.9 percent, up from 12.8 percent in the second quarter."

With its gains, Lenovo "managed to close its market share gap with No. 1-ranked HP to just 4.2 percentage points," representing "the?closest any company has come to taking the lead position from HP since the second quarter of 2008 ... when Dell came within 2.7 percentage points of the perennial market leader," the research firm said.

IHS

After HP, Lenovo and Dell, the other top PC makers were Acer and ASUS.

Lenovo?s "rise to second place is all the more impressive considering the company was ranked fourth as recently as the first quarter of 2011," IHS said.

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Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/30/9119430-lenovo-passes-dell-to-become-no-2-pc-brand-worldwide

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