Lenovo has unseated Hewlett-Packard as the world’s top PC maker, a position the company has held for six years, according to Gartner.
The researcher’s stats showed that 15.7% of global PC shipments in the third quarter came from Lenovo vs. 15.5% for HP. That’s the first time Lenovo has taken the No. 1 position. Gartner attributed the PC maker’s gains to aggressive pricing, especially in the professional market. Lenovo’s share has been steadily increasing over the past two years.
Lenovo’s gain came as PC sales declined 8% worldwide in 3Q, in a large part because buyers are holding off purchases of new PCs until Windows 8′s official release on Oct. 26. The U.S. picture was even grimmer: PC sales fell 13.8% for the quarter.
HP’s fall from the top spot comes amid a transitional period for that company. HP is in the midst of cutting 29,000 jobs — a process that will take until 2014 to complete. Like others, including Dell, HP has had a hard time transitioning to the so-called post-PC era. The company’s tablet PC, the TouchPad, flopped, leading the company to kill off the product in August 2011.
Nevertheless, not everyone agrees with Gartner’s estimate. HP questioned the figures and pointed to an IDC report also released on Wednesday that showed the company narrowly holding on to the top spot in 3Q.
Meanwhile, the primarily catalyst for the post-PC movement — Apple — didn’t make the top five in either list. If you consider a tablet a PC, as researcher Canalys does, though, then Apple is No. 1.
Elie Chahine 
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