EL SEGUNDO, CA – Although Dell sold more PCs than any other OEM last year, 2006 will go down as the year of HP, with the company racking up market share gains that permitted it to capture the top ranking in the second half, says iSuppli.
 
In the fourth quarter of 2006, HP shipped 11.6 million PCs, up 21.1% year-over-year. This was more than three times the rate than the PC industry average of 6.3% growth during the period, according to iSuppli.
 
In contrast, Dell shipped 9.6 million PCs in the fourth quarter of 2006, down 8.6% year-over-year. Dell was the only Top-5 PC OEM to report a decline in fourth-quarter shipments.
 
Lenovo held onto third place, with shipments of 4.8 million, up from 4.4 million in 2005. The Chinese PC company’s lead over fourth-placed Acer shrank from 1.3 million units in the third quarter to only 348,000 units in the fourth quarter. Acer came on strong in the fourth quarter, with year-over-year unit growth of 42.7%.
 
Worldwide PC shipments in the fourth quarter amounted to 66.7 million units, up 11% sequentially and up 6.3% from 62.7 million during the same period in 2005.
 
On the semiconductor side, 2006 saw the escalation of the PC microprocessor war between Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. Pricing was a major weapon, as was dual-core microprocessor technology for mainstream PCs. The next stage of this contest will be the battle to control the market for quad-core microprocessors in mainstream applications, says the firm.
 

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