The World’s Largest PC Maker Is HP—Or Maybe Lenovo

On Wednesday, Gartner and IDC both released preliminary reports on PC industry market share, and the two research firms disagree. IDC says HP remains the number one PC maker with 15.9 percent of the market, while Gartner says Lenovo has captured the top spot with 15.7 percent of the market.

According to the IDC press release, “HP saw shipments contract more than 16% from a year ago and narrowly held on to the top vendor spot. Distractions caused by its reorganization, challenges in integrating its enterprise acquisitions, and an unclear strategy to regain its course remain key obstacles.” IDC added, “Lenovo, despite slowing growth in Asia, continued to register the highest yearly growth among all top vendors.”

But Gartner’s press release claimed, “Lenovo took the No. 1 position in worldwide PC shipments for the first time in the company’s history, as its share increased to 15.7 percent, while HP’s global PC share was at 15.5 percent. In addition to acquiring other vendors, Lenovo has also taken an aggressive position on pricing, especially in the professional market. As a result, Lenovo has achieved significant market share gains over the last two years, exceeding regional average growth rates across all regions.”

Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham noted that in Gartner’s report, “of the companies named, only Lenovo and Asus performed better in this year’s Q3 than they did last year’s. HP has given up so much market share that Lenovo was able to pass the company to become the largest PC OEM worldwide. This is the first time that Lenovo has taken the worldwide market share crown, and the first time that HP has lost it since the end of 2006.”

Matt Burns from TechCrunch observed that the reason for the discrepancy is that “IDC reports an additional segment and therefore different numbers.”