14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that, despite some setbacks and mild demand issues, the PC market managed to recover substantially after the slowdown in 2009, and Q3 was no different, especially when it came to Dell's performance in particular.
During the third quarter of 2010, worldwide shipments of personal computers amounted to 88.1 million, which corresponded to a growth of 6.7 percent over the second quarter.
Also, compared to the same period of 2009, the increase was even more substantial, of 10.3 percent to be exact (2009 Q3 yielded 79.9 million units).
In Dell's case, the relatively good performance of the corporate PC market boosted its sales during the July-September period.
In numbers, 11.3 million Dell PCs were sold, 7.2 percent more than the 10.5 million during the second quarter.
It also meant that Dell kept its share of 12.8 percent of the total PC market, in the US, that it had secured in Q2. Growth was shown even on-year, of 9.3 percent.
“Dell in the third quarter continued to benefit from the relatively strong performance of the corporate PC market compared to the consumer segment,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms research, for iSuppli.
“Consumer PC sales growth slowed in the third quarter partly because back-to-school sales were lower than expected,” Wikins added.
“However, since the second quarter, corporate demand for desktop PCs and entry-level servers has been strong, driven by companies’ efforts to replace systems with newer, faster, more efficient computers.”
“Dell has a higher mix of corporate business to the market than HP and Acer and therefore was less exposed to the consumer slowdown,” the analyst concluded.
According to iSupply, what contributed most to the favorable outcome of Q3 was that, comparatively, the second quarter of 2010 was “a terrible period for the PC market.”