Lenovo wrestles back top spot in Asia's PC market

According to research firm IDC, the Chinese PC maker was overtaken by rival Hewlett-Packard (HP) in the first quarter of this year. But Lenovo managed to bounce back with a 19 percent share of the total market in the second quarter, with a 90.9 percent year-on-year growth. HP trails behind with 12.3 percent of market share, followed by Dell at 9 percent.

Bryan Ma, associate director of personal systems research, IDC Asia-Pacific, said Lenovo's strong showing was due partly to its acquisition of IBM's PC business.

"Lenovo also took back its top spot by not only riding on the seasonal recovery in China, but through its newly-acquired IBM's Personal Computing Division (PCD), which provided Lenovo with an even more significant lead over second-place HP," he explained.

The overall Asia-Pacific PC market exceeded IDC's initial forecasts with a 7 percent growth over the previous quarter and a 17 percent year-on-year growth. This is due to the better-than-expected performances of countries such as China, Australia and Korea, according to the IDC findings. Singapore, too, beat expectations despite earlier signs of sluggish sales.

"The Singapore PC market fell sequentially in the second quarter as many SMBs (small and midsize businesses) had already completed their IT purchases before the start of the new fiscal year in April," said Reuben Tan, Asia-Pacific senior analyst for personal systems research, IDC. "Furthermore, the PC Show in June resulted in mixed outcomes for the participating vendors, with many finding that sales were not as robust as the IT Show held earlier in March."

"But the Singapore market still beat expectations, with tertiary institutions' student purchase programs being the saving grace for the notebook market," he added.