apple-new-logo-lg1Apple is expected to be dropped from fourth place in the winter to fifth in the spring as it should have shipped 12.4 percent fewer computers than it did a year earlier, falling to 1.21 million Macs. Macs market share is poised to remain the same at 7.6 percent but will have been eclipsed by Toshiba.

Among the top five firms, the only other firm to lose market share is expected to be Dell. Dell would still have the lead with 26.3 percent of the market but will have shipped 18.9 percent fewer PCs than it did in spring 2008 and would have shipped just 40,000 more computers than HP at 4.17 million.

Acer will have grown the quickest under these estimates, jumping exactly 51 percent to reach nearly 2.01 million PCs shipped and 12.6 percent of the American market.

Sweeping MacBook Pro updates that included lower prices only came in mid-June and were unlikely to have had a significant impact. Companies like Acer, meanwhile, have already focused heavily on budget portables; it specifically is the leader in netbooks, which may represent as much as one quarter of the market by the end of the year.

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A Comparison

  • HP is likely to have shipped about 13.1 million PCs and earned 19.8 percent of the global industry.
  • Dell will have shipped 9.11 million PCs and collected 13.7 percent of the market.
  • Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba should all have grown but will maintain their respective third, fourth and fifth places with 12.7 percent, 8.7 percent and 5.3 percent of the wider field.

The world PC market dropped at about the same rate as the US, at 3.1 percent, and was again seen as a positive as it indicated that the public was continuing to buy new computers; few firms could link larger shipments to attempts to clear out excess stock. IDC had originally feared a drop of 6.3 percent.