International Data Corp reckons that personal computer sales in the US in the second quarter came to 6m machines, an 18% increase over last year, but Dataquest Inc could find only 5.6m sales, for 12% growth. Dataquest is on its own on worldwide sales, saying they rose 16.5% from last year with 15.9m sold. Further discrediting the whole market research business, Dataquest Inc and International Data Corp came up with widely divergent market share figures for the US, and while both had Compaq Com puter Corp in first place, Dataquest had IBM Corp second with a 9% market share and Packard Bell Electronics Co third with 8.7%; International Data had it the other way around with Packard Bell at 9.7% in second place and IBM in third with only 8.6% . Both pitched Hewlett-Packard Co back out of the top five and both reported double-digit declines for Apple Computer Inc, with International Data giving it 6.9%, up from 6.6%, and Dataquest giving it far more – 7.4%, up from 7.3%. Compounding the damage caused by the big discrepancies, both stood by their figures.
