Which Company is the Largest Producer of Personal Computers?

We all have our favorite brand of PC, although sometimes our favorite desktop computer might not be produced by our favorite notebook company. So, how do our favorites stack up to the sales figures? Bright Hub looks at statistics from Gartner Research and from IDC, to see what they say. Then we take a look at what Amazon.com says are the most popular sellers today, on June 22, 2009.

The top

HP dominated the market in 1Q 2009. They had the highest sales, according to both research companies, worldwide and in the US.

Of the approximately 15 million PCs of different types sold in the US, HP accounted for either 27.6 or 27.7%. This was a jump for HP from 1Q 2008, when they sold, depending on who you rely upon, just under 24%, or just under 25%.

In 1Q 2009 in the US, Dell came in second, with a share just over 26 percent. This was a significant change for Dell, who sold a bit over 30%, or a bit over 31%, depending on which research company, in 1Q 2008. This made them the largest seller in 1Q 2008.

Worldwide, HP produced the highest numbers for both the 1Q 2008 and 1Q 2009, but their market share increased about 1.5 or 2 points (20.5% or 19.8% in 2009) from (18.1% or 18.5% in 2008). During the same time period, Dell’s worldwide share slipped just over 1.6 points from 2008 to 2009 (13.6% or 13.2% to 15.2% or 14.7 % in 2009), down from (15.2 or 14.7% in 2008).

The rest of the top five

Acer is ranked third for both time periods, in the US and globally. However, the two research groups disagree on the increase of Acer’s market share, with IDC estimating that Acer gained about one and a half points since 2008, and Gartner showing them jumping three and a half to four points in 1Q 2009.

In the US, fourth place Apple’s market share of about seven and a half percent stayed within about .2 of a point from 1Q 2008 to 1Q 2009, but IDC shows them gaining .2 points, while Gartner says they lost .1 point of market share among US consumers. World wide, Apple does not show in the top five.

Fourth place in the top five in the world is held by Lenevo, and their percentage of market share stayed virtually flat at about 7%, or just under.

Toshiba holds fifth place both in US and global sales, and their market share of 6.6% in the US and 5.5% world wide appears to have risen about 1 point in both arenas since 1Q 2008.

Now for a look at best sellers on Amazon

Amazon’s bestsellers in both laptops and desktop computers gives a somewhat different picture. Looking at their top 25 best selling computers in laptops showed 10 HP computers, 5 Apple computers, 4 Toshiba laptops, and Sony, Acer and Compaq sold the other 6 of the top 25. The top Laptop was a HP Pavilion DV6-1030US 16.0-Inch Laptop , closely followed by the Apple MacBook Pro MB990LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop.

In Desktops, the best seller is a Compaq CQ2009F Desktop PC (by Hewlett-Packard), and number two is

Apple Mac mini MB463LL/A Desktop. Of the top 25 most popular desktops, 8 were made by Apple. HP had 6, with another two in the list from Compaq, also giving them 8. Then it spreads out. Dell had 3, Asus 3, and Gateway 2. And 1 from a name which was definitely lumped in with Others, the Averatec AVERATEC All-In-One PC - All-in-one - 1 x Atom N270 / 1.6 GHz - RAM 1 GB - HDD 1 x 160 GB - DVD001aRW / DVD-RAM - WLAN : 802.11b/g - Win XP Home - Monitor : 18.4" Widescreen TFT, which made it in to the top 25 for a single day. Sale, anyone?

All in all, PCs don’t seem to have been hit quite so badly by the world wide slump as other consumer goods.

HP, watch out. In the US, Apple seems to be coming on strong.