HP remains No. 1 in PCs

Hewlett-Packard continued its sprint ahead of the competition in the second quarter of 2007, remaining the No. 1 PC vendor in the world. While Dell has continued to struggle, Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba showed positive signs, each outpacing the worldwide PC market growth rate of 12.5 percent, according to IDC.

HP continued its successful run of strong quarters, leading all PC makers by shipping 11.3 million units, good enough for 19.3 percent of the overall market. Dell's global shipments were down almost 5 percent--to about 9.5 million PCs--from a year ago, but remained in second place behind HP.

Dell has taken a hard fall, though it's at least taken steps to recovery. The Round Rock, Texas-based PC maker, in trying to reclaim its momentum with consumers is now offering a line of its PCs in Wal-Mart stores, a fairly bold move and a departure from its traditional sales model. On the other hand, adding color to its notebook lineup, announced last month, is a bit of a me-too effort. In both cases there hasn't been enough time to see whether pink laptops or Wal-Mart's pull with shoppers have had any real effect on demand for Dell PC products.

Meanwhile, HP has experienced "rapid growth, and they have room to run," according to IDC analyst Loren Loverde. "If you look at where they're growing, making big strides in the U.S. despite a relatively soft market. They're clearly taking advantage of Dell's misfortunes."