These third quarter results were below Gartner's earlier market outlook. Gartner had expected third quarter PC shipments to grow 12.7%.

 

"The major growth inhibitor in the third quarter of 2010 was softness in consumer PC demand in the U.S. and Western Europe. The third quarter historically is a strong consumer quarter, led by back-to-school sales," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. 

 

"Consumer mobile PC demand, driven by low-priced notebooks, including mini-notebooks, slowed after very strong growth the past two years."

 

"Media tablet hype around devices such as the iPad has also affected consumer notebook growth by delaying some PC purchases, especially in the U.S. consumer market. Media tablets don't replace primary PCs, but they affect PC purchases in many ways," Kitagawa said. 

 

"At this stage, hype around media tablets has led consumers and the channels to take a 'wait and see' approach to buying a new device."

 

HP remained in the top worldwide position, but it experienced a slight decline in shipments in the quarter. HP experienced a 20% decline in shipments in Asia/Pacific as the company put a higher priority on profits in the region. In the U.S., the company was impacted by weak consumer growth.

 

Acer experienced a shipment decline of 1.7% in Q3. Dell showed solid growth across most regions. Overall, Dell benefited from the professional PC market refresh, but North America showed disappointing results. Lenovo showed the strongest growth among the top five vendors worldwide. The professional PC market helped boost Lenovo's growth in the US and EMEA.

 

The vendors outside the top five continued to outperform the market. Lenovo’s very strong performance in the consumer market across all regions helped the vendor move into the top five for the first time, displacing Toshiba. Lenovo had the strongest growth rate among the top five vendors in EMEA in the third quarter of 2010, and saw its shipments grow 61.3% year-on-year.