Lenovo ousts HP as world’s largest PC maker

Data shows China’s Lenovo, Taiwan’s Acer and other Asian PC makers are outperforming US competitors such as HP and Dell.

Lenovo ranked number one PC maker
Third quarter of 2012 marks first time Hewlett Packard is not number one global PC maker [Reuters]

China-based Lenovo Group has become the world’s number one maker of personal computers.

Research firm Gartner reported on Wednesday that the Chinese company knocked California-based Hewlett Packard from the top spot in the third quarter of 2012.

“We are establishing even deeper roots in each major market around the world. In addition to localised sales and
distribution teams in major markets, we are establishing an even stronger manufacturing footprint,” Yuanqing Yang, Lenovo Chairman and CEO, said in a statement about the continued growth of the $8.2bn company.

Rival research group IDC still ranks the Silicon Valley titan in the top spot, but by less than half a percentage point – in terms of global PC shipments.

Both sets of data show that Lenovo, Taiwan’s Acer and other Asian PC makers are taking share away from US competitors HP and Dell, which held on to the number three spot in the quarter.

The Chinese company, which vaulted into the PC market by buying IBM’s personal computer division in 2005, took the top spot for the first time by growing its market share to 15.7 per cent, shipping an estimated 13.77 million units during the quarter, up nearly 10 per cent from a year ago, Gartner said.

HP’s global PC share stood at 15.5 per cent after shipping 13.55 million units, down 16.4 per cent from a year ago, Gartner said, adding that this was the first time HP has not been the top-ranked PC vendor position since 2006.

Overall, however, global demand for personal computers dropped over eight per cent last quater because of the rise of portable gadgets such as tablets, as well as a slowing economy.

“PCs are going through a severe slump,” said Jay Chou, senior research analyst at IDC’s Worldwide PC Tracker.

“A weak global economy as well as questions about PC market saturation and delayed replacement cycles are certainly a factor, but the hard question of what is the ‘it’ product for PCs remain unanswered.”

Lenovo’s rise highlights the advance of China’s technology firms on the world stage in recent years as a result of
aggressive pricing, overseas acquisitions, and taking advantage of a fast-growing home market.

This year the company has bought Brazilian electronics maker CCE, valued at a base price of $148mn, and US cloud computing firm Stoneware.

“While there are a variety of PC share reports in the market, some don’t measure the market in its entirety,” HP said
in a statement. “The IDC analysis includes the very important workstation segment, and therefore is more comprehensive”.

Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO was appointed CEO of HP in September 2011, since then, she has reaffirmed the company’s committment to the PC market, which it had considered abandoning at one point.