Desktop PC Market Continues Slide, But Dell Continues To Rise

Dell Computer

Research firm IDC Thursday released a report showing that 11.1 million PCs were shipped in the U.S. market during the fourth quarter of 2001, a drop of about 10.1 percent from the 12.3 million shipped during the same quarter last year.

Of the top five vendors, only Dell continues to enjoy growing sales, according to IDC. Dell shipped 3 million units in the last quarter of the year, an increase of 11.4 percent compared with the 2.3 million units shipped last year. That gave the vendor a 27.5 percent share of the overall market.

Compaq Computer was second, with shipments totaling 1.4 million units, or 12.7 percent of the market, down almost 25 percent from the 1.9 million units shipped last year.

Rounding out the top five vendors were Hewlett-Packard at 1.3 million units, a drop of 13.4 percent; Gateway at 693,000 units, a drop of 35.6 percent; and IBM at 575,000 units, a drop of 22.7 percent.

While year-to-year shipments fell, shipments in the fourth quarter rose 6.1 percent compared with the third quarter of the year, thanks to a strong increase in home user purchases, IDC said. However, U.S. businesses preferred to keep using their old equipment, and so sales to this sector remained weak.