Bow Down Before Your New Chinese Overlords: Lenovo Passes HP as World’s Top PC Maker

Lenovo has been heading towards this for a long time as its PC shipments rise relative to its struggling rivals. And now it has officially happened: Lenovo has surpassed HP as the world’s top PC maker in terms of shipments.

Research firm IDC says that Lenovo (HKG:0992) now accounts for 16.7 percent of PCs shipped in the world in Q2 2013; while HP (NYSE:HPQ) is at 16.4 percent.

But it’s bad news all round for the industry as laptop and desktop demand slumped, causing a drop of 11.4 percent in the number of PCs shipped overall. Indeed, Lenovo’s sales of these devices fell, but by less than its rivals. The global top five is: Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, and Asus:

Lenovo stocks soar

IDC explained today about the scene in Asia-Pacific:

Although countries outside of China were fairly in line with forecasts, with India maintaining an encouraging trajectory, overall PC shipments in the region fell slightly below forecast due to China. Weak sell-in to China during April and May constrained shipments. Although June shipments in China improved, expectations for the third quarter are being lowered to reflect remaining inventory as well as economic pressures. [In Japan], although the market continued to shrink and consumer sentiment remained weak, market growth came in as expected.

50 percent of Lenovo’s shipments go to China.

Lenovo’s stock price soared today in trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, closing in Thursday’s trading up 4.06 percent to HK$7.18 per share.

A different research firm, Gartner, said last October that Lenovo had risen to the top, but we – and many other media – prefer to stick with IDC’s stats for this kind of thing.

Lenovo is looking to smartphones and tablets to offset reduced PC demand. The company is China’s fourth largest smartphone maker, one place above Apple.

(Source: CNET and IDC)