Sales of personal computers in the Asia Pacific region outside Japan rose 24 percent in the third quarter to September, compared with the same period a year ago, an industry report said.
Strong demand for notebook computers helped boost sales to 16.1 million units in the quarter, global research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said in a statement received late Thursday. Compared with the second quarter, growth came in at 13 percent, it said, citing preliminary data. The July-September figures were 5.0 percent higher than IDC's forecast, the statement said.
"Portable PCs, particularly those sold through retail channels, continue to blow me away," said IDC analyst Bryan Ma. "Even emerging markets that intuitively would gravitate towards lower priced desktop PCs have shown increased interest in notebooks. If things keep going at this pace, the region's portable PC shipments will likely reach the 20 million unit milestone for the year."
China's Lenovo maintained its regional leadership with a 21.3 percent market share during the quarter, followed by US computer-maker Hewlett-Packard with 15.5 percent, IDC said. Dell, also of the United States, was in third place with 8.8 percent of the market, while Taiwan's Acer had 7.2 percent.