HP Still #1, Dell takes #2 Spot in Notebook Sales for Q1 2008

DisplaySearch has found that while the notebook market shrunk 6% from Q1 to Q2 this year, it was up 35% on-year in Q1'08 with 31 million units shipped. HP remained in first place for the seventh consecutive quarter, with a lead of nearly 2 million units over Dell. HP has held over a 20% market share for six consecutive quarters now.

Dell has been concentrating on expanding in China and achieved a 15% share in that country, the first time they have seen above that mark since Q4'06. Globally Dell has only a small lead over Acer, and with Acer's recent acquisitions of Gateway and Packard Bell, the competition should be fierce.

Rankings in the notebook market have changed hands among smaller brands. Apple took the #7 slot after being #8 for four quarters, and ASUS moved to #8. Most of the top ten brands have maintained their rankings over the past year, except for Sony. Sony has gone from #6 in Q3'07 to #7 in Q4'07, and down to #9 in Q1'08. Sony's shipment volumes have declined by 27% in areas where Acer, Dell, and HP have grown by more than 50%.

Below are the Notebook shipments by brand in Q1'08

Rank	Brand	Q1'07	Q1'08	Y/Y Change	Q1'08 Share
1	HP	4.608M	6.460M	40%	20.8%
2	Dell	3.228M	4.683M	45%	15.1%
3	Acer	3.415M	4.527M	33%	14.6%
4	Toshiba	2.399M	2.890M	21%	9.3%
5	Lenovo	1.473M	2.321M	58%	7.5%
6	Fujitsu-Siemens	1.275M	1.612M	26%	5.2%
7	Apple	0.891M	1.433M	61%	4.6%
8	Asus	0.796M	1.330M	67%	4.3%
9	Sony	1.281M	1.321M	3%	4.2%
	Others	3.759M	4.529M	21%	14.5%
	Total	23.124M	31.108M	35%	100%

Table information courtesy DisplaySearch

15.4-inch WXGA (1280x800 pixels) screens continue to be the most popular size, accounting for almost 50% of shipments in Q1'08. 14.1-inch WXGA panels came in second place with a 22% share.
Interesting developments in the notebook market center around Dell's and Toshiba's shipments in Q1'08, which went up; the first quarter is usually a period of decline. Apple and Samsung increased their shipments by 7% and 15% respectively in Q1, which is worth noting considering that Apple's base notebook starts at over $1,000 and Samsung does not even sell in the US.

Information for this article comes from market research firm DisplaySearch.

 

The only surprise for me here is how highly ranked Fujitsu is on the list, I didn't expect that. I guess overseas, the market is much larger for them.

 

Same here Sam, I've never seen a Fujitsu.

 

I think biggest winers are Apple & Asus.Their Y/Y change is huge

 

I agree with Sam and Thomas, I never expected Fujitsu to be so high, the thing is I never seen one in North America, only time I have seen it is in Europe, in Turkey to be precise, and even that is very rare.

 

1st of all CHAZ THANKS for this post. Great Info!

Folks I am sure that you have noticed ... HP is getting overly "Confident" of themselves ... it shows in their "PRICING" ... you don't see the "Good Deals" anymore ...

My guess is they took the 1st spot because they used to have decent prices ... We'll see what happens next year.

G!

 

HP is #1 in sales and in last place for support.
Improve your support please HP.

 

Yay for Other.

 

With the new Voodoo, I expect them to pull a little further ahead.

 

It's no surprise that 15.4" with 1280x800 pixels account for 50% of sales. HP doesn't even offer any resolution options on the 15.4" and smaller Pavilion models. That alone would keep me from buying one!

 

Sony is in real trouble here and needs to revamp their entire line to be more competitive with all the competition they face. They are a very large corporation with deep pockets and can really make an impact if they go after the business side of the market.

 

The new Pavilions will have higher resolutions.

The 15.4" model will have at least up to WSXGA+.

 

Count me as one of the buyers pushing Fujitsu to a surprising and respectable position.

What they need to do is reduce prices and increse marketing. I have not seen one commercial from Sony since getting myself a notebook way back in 2006.

 

i agree. sony notebooks are way overpriced.

 

Sony does advertise, and quite prominently on AU TV. Did you miss out the latest stylish Vaio "Eyes on You" campaign on TV?

 

Cheers to Apple, they were no where near in top 10 few years ago.

 

HP should certainly be concerned about their pricing because one of the reasons that HP has been successful is because they have a great "value proposition" for consumers. As HP increases prices on the number of types of products and configurations, they could easily find consumers going elsewhere.

Asus can thank the Eee PC line for their rise on the charts. Sure, it's not the best notebook line and Eee PCs don't make good "primary computers," but Eee PCs are cheap and they make wonderful secondary notebooks (laptops you just use around the house, for short business trips, or for and quick casual use). The value proposition there is HUGE because you don't need a quad-core processor and 1080p resolution to surf the Web or watch digital movie files on the road.

Back to HP ... although they need to watch their pricing, we're also seeing higher notebook prices across the board from all manufacturers because of the weak American dollar. The US government needs to figure out what the heck it needs to do in order to turn our economy around. We've become so dependent on other countries and our unemployment rates keep going up that if things continue on this course we're going to have a hard time finding good, reasonably high-performance notebooks (from any company) that cost less than $1,000.

 

HP may be #1 but Dell's XPS laptop line kicks anything Hp can come up with

 

I couldn't agree more - Toshiba doesn't offer anything higher either. 1280x800 is a pathetic resolution in this day and age.

 

Yes Dell might have better support but HP will always be #1 in my book. Go HP!!!

 

HP built up their NB business...

i remembered a few years back Toshiba and Acer dominating...

Toshiba has kinda lost the plot abit since moving their manufacturing from japan to malaysia/indo

 

I love my HP DV8000T, Still running strong after 3 years. Not to say I got it for free because my dad worked at HP

 

Given how weak Sony's NB line-up is in 15.4", 14.1" and the business BX series, it's not that suprising to see its market share continue to drop. On the other hand, when your main selling point is style, you don't really want a whole lot of people running around with the same style because it won't stand out. So I guess, it's good and bad for Sony.

 

"Asustek Computer shipped around 1.4 million notebooks in the first quarter of 2008 and ranked number eight in terms of market share. However, if Eee PC shipments of around 700,000 units are included, the company's shipments jump to 2.1 million units, surpassing those of Fujitsu and Apple, to rank in sixth place, and closely trailing behind Lenovo who shipped 2.2-2.3 million units, according to a recent report from IDC. "

If you counted the EEE PC Asus would've been SIXTH....

 

No surprise , HP holding steady, Dell after that and Acer running 3rd.
Been like that last year also.

As Gophn said, hooray for others(*cough Clevo cough*)

 

Toshiba shifted production from Japan to China, not Malaysia/Indo. Where do you get such information from? Malaysian build quality is pretty good too as evident from Dell's impressive high end systems which are all built in Malaysia. Similarly, HP's high end systems used to be built in Singapore (some still do) and they are just as good.

Toshiba's built quality falters because it cut corners when outsourcing to ODMs. Having them built in China does not necessarily make them poorly built (look at Lenovo's Thinkpads and HP's notebooks, they are assembled solidly), but having them built at the lowest cost possible using cheap materials caused Toshiba's notebooks to drop in quality.

 

An introduction of a single model, particularly a relatively pricey premium 13.3 model won't get anywhere close to having a visible impact on the sales of HP. They would have to sell at least 64,400 of those to raise their sales by 1%. And that's assuming their sales don't rise at all in Q2 or Q3.

The new Envy is very nice, but hardly a market winning product.

I would actually like to see market share of each company in various parts of the globe. Can't seem to access it on DisplaySearch though.

And I just realized that Chaz is no longer in Rochester. *stalker alert*

 

Hi folks,

@ JM ... Love your Avatar.

@ DTX ... Fujitsu's laptops are solid ... but they are pricey and never have a "Coupon" or "Sale". Also, forget about Customizing your Fujitsu ... they are pre-built. Fujitsu should also consider to include Bluetooth on all of their models if there is no customization.

G!

 

In Canada the only thing we can costomize is Dell, we don't even get to cosomize HP... wwwwhahaaaaaaaaaa!

 

Off topic: Don't you get to customize Lenovo as well?

 

Well, I think Acer has much larger market share than this considering its subsidery Gate way sells in the US and Japan, they are quite big in Tokyo and Osaka.

What about Compaq is that included in the HP sells figure here?

I am quite surprised HP sells so well ,as I travel around the world , I see more Acer lappies than any others..

Lenovo is no5?

Wow , it is a big surprise , I thought Lenovo is the no2, I thought like this,no 1 Acer,2 Lenovo , 3 Dell ,4 HP , 5 Toshiba, 6 ASUS , oh well, I was definitely wrong.

Hope Dell does better in Q2 ,Q3 and Q4.

 

Dell can scratch one from my behalf soon

 

You really cannot include netbook sales in league with dealer sales of regular notebooks. They are really a class of their own. Though they may ship more, the prices are drastically different (in the cases of the ASUS Eee Surf and sub $500 area) because the reality is that the market share fthat 15.4" has will not be overtaken by netbooks just yet or possibly ever. The subnotebook/netbook market should be qualified as a different, major subcategory of notebooks. They will change sales figures, but not immediately unless the price is really sweet.