Laptops are still 'hot' despite the 'cool' economy.

Global shipments of personal computers have still increased by more than 12% in the first quarter of 2008, mainly due to the incredibly strong demand of laptops, research firm iSuppli said.

Sharing the top 3 positions are Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Acer respectively. Specifically, according to iSuppli, the total number of PCs sold in the first 3 months of this year has increased to 69.9 million (compared to 62.4 million in the same period last year). This is a good achievement for analysts, but it's still a notebook with a laptop.

" Never before has the mobile computer market been as hot and vibrant as it is today, " commented iSuppli expert Matthew Wilkins. However, Mr. Matthew also warned: " Financial markets are still trying to adjust under the influence of the credit crisis in the US. Consumers and businesses will soon feel the heat of the crisis. This panic ".

During the past 5 years, PC sales in the first quarter always achieved an average growth of 12%. Considering the data, this year's 12% figure is not outstanding. But based on the actual context, it can be said that this is a great effort of the PC market, iSuppli added.

The race of the giants

Source: Daily Mail HP continues to prove its strength as shipments of computers increase by 23% over the same period last year, reaching 13.2 million units. This is the strongest increase among the world's top 10 PC firms.

As of March 31, HP's market share stood at 18.9%. HP's main rival, Dell, also saw sales growth of up to 20%, reaching approximately 9 million units. As a result, its market share improved by 0.5% to 15.4%.

Completing the top 3 is Taiwan's Acer computer company with 10.5% sales growth, 6.8 million units and 9.7% market share.

With the acquisition of Gateway and Packard Bell recently, Acer has temporarily left its main rival, Lenovo. At the same time, the company is also narrowing the gap with two "giants" on HP and Dell. According to analysts, soon Acer will join the group of PC manufacturers with more than 10% market share in hand.

Sharing the 4th and 5th positions is Lenovo and Toshiba, with 6.9% and 4.4% market share, respectively. Lenovo's consumption growth is quite strong at 21.2%, while Toshiba is close to 20.3%.