Europe’s PC market notched robust growth in the third quarter, shipping 6.7 million units, a jump of 23.5% on the quarter last year, according to estimates released Friday by Gartner GroupÆs Dataquest Inc unit. Beleaguered Compaq held its own in the region, shipping 1.08 million boxes, an increase of 18.3% on last year, and enough to retain the market leadership with its share slightly reduced from 16.8% to 16.1%.
However, CompaqÆs closest competitors made the most gains in the quarter. Dell, shipping 654 million units for a 9.7% market share, enjoyed year-on-year growth of 48.7%, and SiemensÆ shipments surged 40.8%, to secure a 7.2% market share from shipments of 485 million units. Both companiesÆ market shares represented an increase on the period a year before, strengthening from 8.1% and 6.3% respectively. IBM, meanwhile, saw its market share weaken slightly to 7.1% from 7.9% on shipments up 11.2% at 482 million, followed by Hewlett-Packard whose market share increased from 5.9% to 6.5% as shipments grew 34% to 435 million units.
Within the region, the German and UK markets continued to lead the rest. The German market surged ahead 35% from last year as shipments totaled 1.6 million units, while the UK grew 24.1% on shipments of 1.3 million units. DataquestÆs estimates for PC shipments included all classes desktop, deskside, notebook, ultraportable, laptop and transportables, and excluded PC servers.
