Dump your Desktops, it’s the “Age of the Notebook”

California, United States, December 24: People around the world have largely eschewed their bulky desktops in favor of sleek and handy notebooks and the trend is here to stay. Notebook shipments exceeded desktops on a quarterly basis for the first time ever, said research firm iSuppli in a report issued on Tuesday.

"Momentum has been building in the notebook market for some time," noted iSuppli, in its report. The firm went on to call it a "major event in the PC market" because it ushers us into "the age of the notebook."

In the third quarter, 2008, shipments of notebook PCs went up as much as 40 percent to 38.6 million units, while desktop shipments fell 1.3 percent to 38.5 million. Overall, PC shipments surged 15.4 percent in the quarter to 79 million units.

"The big news from iSuppli's market share data for the third quarter was undoubtedly the performance of Taiwan's Acer," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for computer platforms at iSuppli, in a statement.

Acer’s remarkable progress in the third quarter was marked by the shipment of 3 million more units than the previous quarter, with the majority of those being the company's Netbook products. In all, Acer shipped 9.7 million units during the quarter.

With that, the company has grabbed 12.2 percent of the market share while inching closer to the world’s no. 2 Dell, which shipped under 11 million units, translating into a market share of 13.9 percent.

Hewlett-Packard Co. maintained its lead at No. 1, shipping 14.9 million units and holding a market share of 18.8 percent.

Lenovo and Toshiba were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.

Apple Inc., with its typical attractive-yet-imperfect products, is still lagging in the race. The company lost nearly half a point of market share from the second quarter, holding 3.2 percent share that fetched it the seventh place in total shipments.

iSuppli has revised 2008 forecast, towards the higher end. "In view of the better-than-expected third-quarter PC shipments, iSuppli has slightly increased its full year 2008 unit growth forecast from 12.5 percent to 13.0 percent," the firm said, adding that its 2009 outlook has also been boosted and calls for PC unit growth of 4.3 percent.