Report: Dell Reclaims Second Place In Overall PC Market

Dell is continuing to mount a comeback in the PC market, holding onto the second largest share with 12.8 percent of unit shipments. Dell sold 11.3 million PCs in the third quarter, compared to 10.5 million in the second quarter -- an increase of 7.2 percent, according to iSuppli.

Dell maintained the second-place ranking it reclaimed in the second quarter from Acer, which had held the number two spot for the previous three quarters.

Hewlett-Packard maintained its first-place ranking as shipments grew 6.1 percent from the previous quarter to 15.9 million, but shipments declined 0.2 percent year over year, according to iSuppli. HP's market share for Q3 stood at 18 percent, down from 18.3 percent from the prior quarter.

Last month, Dell reported solid third quarter earnings due to strong global demand for its products, good execution from its supply chain, and a combination of direct and partner sales.

Dell did well relative to other manufacturers because of its emphasis on the enterprise space, which iSuppli says has been relatively robust.

“Dell in the third quarter continued to benefit from the relatively strong performance of the corporate PC market compared to the consumer segment,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst of compute platforms research for iSuppli, said in a statement.

Dell's Q3 sales figures were up 9.3 percent year-over-year, while both HP and Acer, which have the largest and the third-largest share of the market respectively, suffered slight declines over that period, according to iSuppli.

“Consumer PC sales growth slowed in the third quarter partly because back-to-school sales were lower than expected. However, since the second quarter, corporate demand for desktop PCs and entry-level servers has been strong, driven by companies’ efforts to replace systems with newer, faster, more efficient computers," Wilkins said in the statement. "Dell has a higher mix of corporate business to the market than HP and Acer and therefore was less exposed to the consumer slowdown.”

iSuppli also said in the report that PC sales have continued to recover from the slowdown experienced in 2009. The firm said 88.1 million PC units shipped in the third quarter of 2010, an increase of 6.7 percent from the second quarter and 10.3 percent from the 79.9 million units shipped in Q3 of last year.

Despite its relatively strong performance in Q3, Dell last month discontinued its communications solutions group, saying it no longer sees mobile devices as a consumer-focused initiative, although the company is preparing several smartphone and tablet devices for next year.

As Dell regains some of its prior position in the traditional PC space, the company may be feeling less pressure to expand into mobile devices than it did just a few months ago.