Acer Leapfrogs Lenovo for the No. 3 Spot in the World PC Market

From Staff Reports

Acer Inc. has passed the Lenovo Group Ltd. (LNVGY) to become the world's No. 3 personal computer vendor with its purchase of Gateway Inc., and now it’s going after U.S. PC giant Dell Inc. (DELL).

That will leave U.S. high-tech giant Hewlett-Packard Corp. in the No. 1 position.

Acer leapfrogged Lenovo with its (HPQ) third largest PC vendor with its purchase of Gateway Inc. Next year, Acer could grab up to 12% of the global PC market share, which will put Dell right in its gunsights, said J.T. Wang, the chairman of Acer, in comments made during the country’s third quarter investors’ conference in Taipei, Taiwan,  over the same quarter a year ago, said the Gartner Group, a leading market researcher. Acer accounted for about 8.1% of the world’s PC shipments during the quarter, a major jump from its 5.9 %  market share at this time a year ago.

The market share figures do not include Gateway, which Acer bought for $710 million a week ago.

Dell's unit shipments grew 3.5 %t during the quarter, but it still saw its market share fall from 15.9% to 14.4%.
Hewlett-Packard kept its title of the No. 1 maker of PCs with 18.8% of the market, actually growing from 16.1%. Lenovo, the No. 4 player, rose to 8% from 7.5% a year earlier.

Wang said the Acer believes it “can maintain strong growth momentum through 2008.” Acer forecasts it will still grow by a double-digit figure next year, which is faster than the global PC industry. Executives also said the fourth quarter of this year looks to be a good quarter, with no indication of a decrease in demand for PCs.

 In the fourth quarter, Acer will also start adding Gateway shipments to its figures, which will add to its market share. Gateway sold only 865,000 PCs in the U.S. market, its biggest, which is down from 1.01 million the year before, Gartner said.

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