Why? How? Who's number one? Number two?
Thanks to two major acquisitions, Taiwan's Acer surpassed Dell Computer as the number two supplier of notebooks, second to top-ranked Hewlett-Packard Co."A few brands managed to surpass the notebook market's amazing unit growth, but most brands had difficulty achieving that level," said John Jacobs, director of notebook research at DisplaySearch.
"While Acer's brand outpaced the market, when their Gateway and Packard Bell acquisitions are factored into the equation, the results are less positive, indicating that their acquisitions were on a downward trend," he added.
Notebook sales grew at a more stately 14 percent quarterly rate in the last three months of 2007 to 33 million units. DisplaySearch projects notebook PC shipments to rise to 135 million units in 2008.
HP remained top in notebook PC sales for the sixth consecutive quarter, maintaining more than a two million-unit lead over Dell, now ranked third. DisplaySearch said HP has about 20 percent of the total market.
One bright spot for Dell is that it managed to maintain its notebook market share lead in North America, holding off HP by just over 3 percent. But overall, Acer has made a fast advance in notebooks.
At the end of 2006, Dell's notebook shipments exceeded Acer by more than a million units. At the end of 2007 the gap dropped to less than 100,000 units, and when Acer's shipments are added to those of its acquisitions--Gateway and Packard Bell--Acer passed Dell by more than 600,000 units in 2007.
The most popular notebook flat-panel size and resolution was 15.4 inches and 1280 - 800 pixels in the third quarter, the most recent period for which DisplaySearch has figures. The screen type accounted for half of all notebooks shipped in that quarter.
Screens measuring 14.1 inches with a 1280 - 800 resolution followed a distant second at 23 percent of all units shipped in the quarter.
No comments:
Post a Comment