Acer, ASUS gaining ground against HP and Dell.

In the world of laptops a few brands have always been the most popular: Sony, Toshiba, HP and Dell. A few years ago, Acer and ASUS jumped on the scene, producing moderately priced, quality laptops. Those smaller brands started inching their way towards the top. Now it appears worldwide consumers are trending away from paying high dollar for the brand name. Especially when the technology is advancing faster than you can pay your credit card bill.

According to Gartner, which tracks worldwide shipments of laptops and analyzes trends, Acer is gaining ground on the worlds most popular laptop brand, HP. During the 2nd quarter of 2010, HP had about 17% of the market share, while Acer had 13%. That's not very stunning until you compare the same two companies' market share from the 2nd quarter of 2009, HP had 18% and Acer had 12%. (It should be noted, at this time last year, Acer was trailing Dell, 12.6% M.S. in worldwide sales.) To round out the top 5, after Dell is Lenovo, followed by ASUS, which bumped Toshiba out of the top 5 in worldwide sales.

When you look at the US sales statistics, you notice that US sales don't necessarily mimic the worldwide trends. HP still sits atop the list with 25.7% of the market, followed by Dell, 23.7%, Acer, 11.3%, Apple 9.8%, and Toshiba rounding out the top 5 with 8.7%.

In EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) sales are vastly different. Acer takes the the number 1 spot away from HP, with 21.3% of the market. That's up from 18.9% last year. HP is in 2nd place with 19.7%, down from 20.8%. But then there's a dramatic drop off between 2nd and 3rd, Dell sits with only 9.2% of the market in the region, while ASUS, 8.5%, and Toshiba, 5.7% place 4th and 5th, respectively.

These trends could be a result of the worldwide economic downturn, as more and more consumers are tightening their belts and looking at wallet friendly alternatives to fit their laptop needs.

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