SAN FRANCISCO – Fourth-quarter sales of PC units are topping even the most positive expectations, up 17% worldwide year-over-year, a leading analyst said today.

Chris Whitmore, an analyst with Deutsche Bank Equity Research, said recent remarks by AMD and Seagate suggest that demand is strong for PCs in general, and notebooks in particular. Furthermore, motherboard and notebook manufacturing are inline with normal seasonality, he said in a research note issued today.  The firm estimated notebook growth topped 35%, while desktops grew about 10%. The investment bank had previously forecast 15% year-over-year growth for the fourth quarter. (Research firm IDC had correctly forecasted a 17% gain in units sold. )

DB recently raised its 2006 forecast for PC unit growth to 12%, which is above the industry consensus. The firm said unit growth and revenue growth will accelerate in 2007.

For the quarter Dell’s units sold rose more than 20% and its market share rose half a point to 17.2%. At HP, unit sales rose nearly 16%. Acer’s unit sales rose 53% and market share rose 1.3%.

Whitmore said earlier expectations of a “significant deceleration” in the first half due to delayed purchases in advance of the new Microsoft Vista operating system may prove to be conservative.

In Asia, fourth-quarter unit shipments were up 45% year-over-year. Notebook unit shipments are expected to fall five to 10% in the first quarter due to seasonality, and motherboards are expected to fall 10 to 15%.

The company also noted that processor pricing could improve as the race heats up between Intel and AMD.