Dell PC share spirals past HP

Compaq outperformed Dell, IBM and Hewlett-Packard with a European market share of 18.3 percent, but Dell took the number three slot from H-P, growing its market share by a whopping 73 per cent in 1998.

This makes Dell the fastest growing PC company, while the whole of the Western European PC market is the fastest growing region worldwide. The French market has performed particularly well with sub $1000 PCs, said the research.

Karine Paoli, senior PC analyst at IDC said the European market would remain robust through 1999, partly due to the increasing trend towards cheap PCs. She warned aggressive pricing would "inevitably weaken value growth and margins" unless vendors could satisfy the market with both low-end and high-end products.

While Western Europe experienced a good year for PC sales, the Eastern and Central European regions fell by 21 percent during 1998. The collapse of the Russian market took most of the blame.