Following another quarter of strong growth, Dell is now the uncontested market leader. After ceding the top spot to HP in Q4 2002 and Q4 2003 following HP’s merger with Compaq, Dell managed to distance itself from HP by a full point of market share in Q4 2004, and seems to have the momentum on its side. Other vendor highlights include significant improvements from Gateway and Apple. While still losing share, Gateway showed the first signs of meaningful improvement following its merger with eMachines. Similarly, Apple saw a significant kick from its new iMac and attention related to its music business, reinvigorating a business that had been struggling to keep pace with the market.
Worldwide PC shipments in Q4 2004 |
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| Q4 2004 | Q4 2004 | Market | Q4 2003 | Market | Growth | |
| Rank | Vendor | Shipments | Share | Shipments | Share | 2004/2003 |
| 1 | Dell | 8,773 | 17.0% | 7,242 | 16.0% | 21.1% |
| 2 | HP | 8,221 | 16.0% | 7,539 | 16.6% | 9.0% |
| 3 | IBM | 2,931 | 5.7% | 2,680 | 5.9% | 9.4% |
| 4 | Acer | 2,219 | 4.3% | 1,669 | 3.7% | 33.0% |
| 5 | Fujitsu Fujitsu Siemens |
2,053 | 4.0% | 1,845 | 4.1% | 11.3% |
| Others | 27,294 | 53.0% | 24,313 | 53.7% | 12.3% | |
| All Vendors |
51,492 | 100.0% | 45,288 | 100.0% | 13.7% | |
| Source: IDC |
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