Gartner: Lenovo Now 2nd-Largest Worldwide PC Vendor

Lenovo is now the second-largest PC vendor in the worldwide market for the first time.

Wednesday Gartner Research said that worldwide PC shipments actually grew 3.2-percent in the third quarter of 2011 compared to the same quarter in 2010, totaling 91.8 million units. However Gartner also said that the numbers are actually lower than its earlier projection of a 5.1-percent growth during Q3 2011.

"The inventory buildup, which slowed growth the last four quarters, mostly cleared out during the third quarter of this year; however, the PC industry has been performing below normal seasonality," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "As expected, back-to-school PC sales were disappointing in mature markets, confirming that the consumer PC market continues to be weak. The popularity of non-PC devices, including media tablets, such as the iPad and smartphones, took consumers' spending away from PCs."

Ouch. Yet despite all the talk about spinning off its PC division, Gartner points out that HP actually grew faster than the industry standard in the third quarter, and still reigns as the #1 worldwide PC vendor shipping over 16 million units, a 5.3-percent jump from the numbers seen in the same quarter last year. It's current market share hovers at 17.7-percent, just over 4-percent more than the new #2 PC vendor, Lenovo.

"Lenovo became the second-largest PC vendor in the worldwide market for the first time," Gartner said. "The company's expansion was boosted in part by the joint vendor with NEC in Japan. However, its aggressive marketing to both the professional and consumer PC markets accelerated its shipment volume."

According to the report, Lenovo shipped more than 12 million units in the third quarter and currently commands 13.5-percent of the market. The company has actually enjoyed a growth of 25.2-percent compared to the sub-10 million units and 11.1-percent market share seen in Q3 2010. Dell reportedly controlled 12.2-percent of the market during the same 2010 quarter, but didn't share the same growth into 2011.

Right now Dell is the third largest worldwide PC vendor, dropping 1.4-percent compared to Q3 2010's sales. In Q3 2011, Dell saw the shipments of 10.6 million units, a slight drop from the 10.8 million units sold this time last year. "Dell's performance was below the industry average in most regions, as the company faced intensified competition in the professional space, where Dell has been traditionally strong," Gartner said.

Acer actually dropped the most out of the listed vendors, falling 23.2-percent after seeing only 9.6 million units shipped in Q3 2011 compared to the 12.6 million units shipped in Q3 2010. The company is currently listed as the fourth largest PC vendor, and is followed by Asus which actually grew 18.5-percent with 5.6 million units shipped this quarter and 4.8 million units shipped in the same quarter last year.

Gartner notes that units sold include desk-based PCs, notebooks and netbooks, but do not include tablets like the iPad or the Eee Pad Transformer. To read the entire report, head here.