Dell Continues to Nosedive

The latest in the PC sales horse race as called by the analysts at Gartner. (IDC saw the same race and reported it essentially the same way.)

Dell worldwide market share in the second quarter is down to 15 percent from 17.8 percent a year earlier. Shipments are down 5.5 percent.

So far, the new jockey, founder Michael Dell, hasn’t made a difference. As has happened for the past two years, the slide is likely to be reflected in weaker financial results, which Dell is expected to report Aug. 30.

The winner was Hewlett-Packard with 18.2 percent share, up from 14.9 percent. Shipments were up 36.6 percent, more, on a percentage basis, than any one else except Acer, which was up 54.2 percent. Acer’s market share was 7.2 percent, up from 5.2 percent a year ago.

In the United States, Dell remains the No. 1 PC vendor, but not by much. It was Dell vs. H.P., 29.9 percent to 25.1 percent. A year ago, the gap was 14.6 percentage points.

The stand-out again was Acer, which more than doubled its market share to 5.6 percent. Indeed, it jumped Toshiba to become the No. 4 PC vendor in the United States after Gateway. (Yeah, it’s still around and still slipping, but not quite as badly as it had been.) Toshiba, though, grew strongly to finish just behind Acer at 5.5 percent market share as shipments grew 54 percent, according to Gartner’s analysis.

IDC teases out the results for Apple, which it puts in fourth place in a dead heat with Gateway with 5.6 percent market share. Apple’s shipments grew 26.2 percent year over year.

The market grew 11.7 worldwide and 5.9 percent in the United States, Gartner said.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/dell-continues-to-sink/#more-247