Acer Boosts Global PC Market Share to 13% in Q1

Taipei, April 21, 2009 (CENS)--The Taiwan-based Acer Inc., now the world's third-largest PC brand, shipped 8.75 million units of PC products, including desktop, notebook and netbook PCs and servers, in the first quarter of this year, up 26.7% from a year earlier, effectively boosting its global market share to 13%, only trailing the second-largest Dell by a margin of 0.1 percentage point, according to Gartner.

Acer shipped 2.07 million units of PC products to the U.S. in the first quarter, sharply increasing 49% from a year earlier, with its hot-selling Aspire One series netbook PCs driving the growth and boosting its global market share to 13.6%, for an increase of 4.5 percentage points, in sharp contrast to Dell's lackluster shipment performance in the market.

In the meantime, Acer has gradually gained solid ground and seen its overall PC shipments significantly increase in the European market. In the first quarter, the brand has narrowed its lag behind HP, the largest PC brand in the world, to only 1.5 percentage points in market share in Europe.

On the other hand, Acer's Taiwanese counterpart Asustek Computer Inc., however, witnessed its PC shipment steeply plunged by 53% to only 940,000 units in the first quarter of this year from 2.01 million units posted in the fourth quarter of last year. The shipment decline was even deeper than the 24.3% average in the line, causing its share of the European market for PCs to slide to 4.1% in the first quarter from 6.7% posted a quarter earlier. Also, the brand receded to the fifth place from the fourth in the market.

Ranking of Global Top 5 PC Brands in Q1, 2009
Brand	Overall PC Shipments	Year-on-year Growth Rate	Market Share
HP	13.3 million units	2.6%	19.8%
Dell	8.78 million units	-16.9%	13.1%
Acer	8.75 million units	26.7%	13.0%
Lenovo	4.43 million units	-7.7%	6.6%
Toshiba	3.68 million units	18.4%	5.5%

Source: Gartner