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" Chinese PC maker Lenovo has reportedly replaced Hewlett-Packard as the top PC maker in the world, although the overall market has suffered a quarterly decline ahead of the release of Windows 8.  According to preliminary figures released by Gartner, Lenovo shipped 13.8 million units in the third quarter, compared with HP&amp;#039;s 13.55 million.   The research organisation pointed to Lenovo&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;aggressive&amp;quot; price cut strategy as helping it increase market share by 15.7%. Gartner said that worldwide PC shipments totaled 87.5 million units in the three months to the end of September 2012, a decline of 8.3% compared with the same period a year earlier.  Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said that the third quarter was a &amp;quot;transitional&amp;quot; period as consumers wait for the launch of machines running Windows 8 in late October. &amp;quot;Retailers were conservative in placing orders as they responded to weak back-to-school sales. By the end of September, retailers were focused on clearing out inventory in advance of the Windows 8 launch later this month,&amp;quot; she said.  &amp;quot;On the professional side, there was minimum impact from Windows 8 in the quarter because the professional market will not adopt Windows 8 PCs immediately after the release.&amp;quot; Whilst Gartner put Lenovo as the top global PC maker, alternate research firm IDC said that HP had actually managed to just retain its top spot by shipping 13.9 million units, giving it a 15.9% share of the global market, compared with Lenovo&amp;#039;s 13.8m units with a 15.7% share. HP has held the PC vendor top spot since 2006, but most analysts believe that Lenovo is likely to gain more market share in the future due to its strategy.  Gartner said that Lenovo was the only PC maker, among the world&amp;#039;s top five, to increase its shipments to the US during the third quarter. According to Gartner, Dell was the third-biggest PC vendor in the third quarter, although the company suffered a &amp;quot;steeper shipment decline than the worldwide average&amp;quot;. Acer was in fourth place, followed by ASUS.  Alongside a slump in the US market, there was also the &amp;quot;worst decline&amp;quot; seen in PC sales across Europe over the past four years. This came despite two consecutive preceding quarters of small growth.  Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, said: &amp;quot;The lack of appeal and innovation in PCs, combined with a challenging economic environment, led the consumer spend to move to other devices.&amp;quot;  Western Europe saw very weak shipments across all countries, as retailers &amp;quot;substantially reduced Windows 7 inventory in anticipation of the arrival of Windows 8 products later this month&amp;quot;, said Gartner.  Despite the arrival of the touch-enabled Windows 8 operating system across desktops, laptops and tablets, IHS iSuppli believes that worldwide PC sales will decline in 2012 for the first time in 11 years.  The analysts feel that the total PC market in 2012 is expected to contract by 1.2% to 348.7 million units, down from 352.8 million in 2011.  It noted that the last such market decline was seen in 2001, after the Dot Com Bubble burst.  &amp;quot;There was great hope through the first half that 2012 would prove to be a rebound year for the PC market,&amp;quot; said Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for computer systems at IHS.  &amp;quot;Now three quarters through the year, the usual boost from the back-to-school season appears to be a bust, and both AMD and Intel&amp;#039;s third-quarter outlooks appear to be flat to down.  &amp;quot;Optimism has vanished and turned to doubt, and the industry is now training its sights on 2013 to deliver the hoped-for rebound. All this is setting the PC market up for its first annual decline since the dot-com bust year of 2001.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a429821/lenovo-replaces-hp-as-top-pc-maker/>