Beancounters at market research firm Isuppli said that in the second quarter Dell shipped 10.5 million units worldwide
. This was down a negligible 1.2 per cent from 10.7 million units in the first quarter and gave Dell a 12.8 per cent share of global shipments, down from 13.1 percent in the first quarter.
While this should have been an occasion for wringing of hands in Texas, Dell's rival Acer saw a larger decline in shipments of 6.2 per cent in the second quarter, with its shipments falling to 10.2 million units. This was down from 10.9 million units shipped by Acer in the first quarter.
Acer's share declined to 12.4 per cent, down from 13.3 per cent in the first quarter.
This is terrible for Acer give that globally PC markets rose in the second quarter, with shipments amounting to 82.5 million units, up from 81.6 million in the first quarter.
Isuppli thinks that Acer suffered because of its dependence on notebook sales and these have slid more dramatically. Other outfits could draw on the upswing in desktop shipments to bolster their total shipments.
Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst of compute platforms research at Isuppli noted that Dell's share of the global PC market had been steadily declining since the second quarter of 2008, when the company accounted for 16 per cent of worldwide shipments and held a 6.5 percentage point lead over Acer.
He predicted that PC unit shipments will grow by 15 per cent in 2010. HP is still the number one PC maker with a market share of 18.1 per cent. But HP has been on top for more than 16 of these reports so that is hardly news.