Dell steals Compaq's UK crown

The preliminary research, published Thursday, tracks shipments of desktops, notebooks and servers. Figures show Dell dominating the UK market with 18.7 percent market share compared to Compaq's 15.5 percent. While Compaq's growth is down to 0.6 percent, Dell is flourishing with 43.3 percent growth.

IDC analyst Andy Brown blames internal problems, distribution changes and poor quality notebooks for the slowdown at Compaq. "Compaq has cut down on its channel partners and has had a lot problems with its notebook ranges," he says. Earlier today Compaq announced new notebooks.

Brown warns of job cuts at Compaq as the company restructures in Europe but on a upbeat note points out the PC firm is still a force to be reckoned with. "Compaq is still strong in servers and the corporate market. They have not lost it completely."

Dell's number one spot is by no means guaranteed Brown says and the top five vendors face strong competition in "a volatile and fluctuating market". While Compaq and Dell battle in out at the top of the table, IBM, Packard Bell and Hewlett Packard come in third, fourth and fifth places with 6.5 percent, 6.3 percent and 5.8 percent respectively. Brown highlights the recently merged Fujitsu Siemens as the "vendor to watch", with Time and Tiny as other possible threats to Hewlett Packard.