EL SEGUNDO – First-quarter global PC shipments amounted to 66.5 million units, down 8.1% year-over-year, and a 14.4% drop sequentially, says iSuppli Corp.

“The worldwide recession sparked by the credit crisis slammed PC shipments for the second quarter in succession during the first three months of 2009,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research at iSuppli. “The first-quarter performance of the worldwide PC market was worse than iSuppli had expected in its prior forecast, which called for a 4% decline in shipments compared to the same period in 2008. After a long period of immunity to the global downturn, the economic crisis finally has begun to impact the PC market.”

The desktop segment was the major culprit for the PC decline, with first-quarter unit shipments dropping 23% compared to the same period in 2008, the research firm says. In contrast, notebook shipments grew 10% compared to the first quarter of 2008.

There were no changes in the rankings of the world’s Top-5 PC OEMs in the first quarter compared to the same period a year earlier.

Hewlett-Packard remained the No.-1 PC OEM for the 11th successive quarter, with its shipments remaining flat from a year earlier at 13 million units. The company held a market share of 19.7%, says iSuppli.

Dell experienced an 18.7% drop in PC unit shipments, declining to 8.8 million in the first quarter, compared to 10.8 million during the same period in 2008. The company’s market share declined to 13.2%, down from 14.9% in the first quarter of 2008.

“Dell’s performance in the first quarter was heavily influenced by its weak desktop shipments, which dragged down its overall market share,” Wilkins said.

The Asian PC OEMs Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba rounded out the Top-5 with market shares of 11.1%, 6.7%, and 5.2 percent%, respectively.

Toshiba posted the strongest growth among the Top-5 on a percentage basis, with its shipments rising by 13.5% from a year earlier.

iSuppli in the first quarter continued to observe strong netbook sales through network operator retail stores. The Top-5 PC OEMs cited sales through such outlets as driving demand for their netbook products.

iSuppli predicts netbooks will account for 14% of worldwide notebook PC shipments in 2009, up from 9% last year.

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