HP loses ground to Acer again

HP has seen its mobile PC market share drop in the face of increasing competition from Acer, a report from analyst firm Gartner has shown.

While HP held onto the top spot in the segment, its share fell from 22.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 to 19.2 per cent in 2010. Acer experienced a year-over-year shipment increase of 48.4 per cent, with its market share rising from 17.9 per cent to 18.5 per cent.

The news comes just after another Gartner report revealed Acer had taken the lead from HP in the Western European PC segment.

Dell was the only other vendor out of the top five besides HP to see its mobile PC market share fall, while Asus was the most improved player with a shipment increase of 113 per cent.

Meanwhile, the mobile PC market has experienced its highest year-on-year growth for eight years with around $36 billion (25 billion) spent by end users, according to Gartner.

Mobile PC shipments hit 49.4 million units in the first quarter of 2010, up 43.4 per cent from the same period in 2009. Netbooks - which the analyst firm calls mini netbooks - were a big boost to the market as shipments grew by 71 per cent.

"However, mini-notebooks' share slowed in some regions as consumers begin to understand the limitations of mini-notebooks, especially in the face of aggressive price cuts of regular notebooks," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, in a statement.

A recent IDC report indicated that laptop sales will remain ahead of tablets in the coming years, showing that notebooks will most likely remain a key area for vendors for the foreseeable future.