Notebooks overtake desktop PC sales

Consumers want to go portable

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24 December 2008 10:14 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Notebooks have overtaken desktop PC sales for the first time this quarter according to research by iSuppli Corp.

According to the research company, notebook PC shipments rose almost 40% in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007 to reach 38.6 million units. Conversely, desktop PC shipments declined by 1.3 percent for the same period to 38.5 million units.

“Momentum has been building in the notebook market for some time, so it’s not a complete surprise that shipments have surpassed those of desktops”, said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms at iSuppli. “The notebook PC is no longer a tool only for the business market, or a computer for the well-off consumer; it’s now a computer for everyman”.

While the top five PC makers in terms of shipments hasn't changed, it's still HP (18.8%) then Dell (13.9%) then Acer (12.2%) then Lenovo (7.5%) then Toshiba (4.4%), the research showed that Acer has seen a whopping 79% increase year over year thanks to its Acer Apsire one netbook.