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Has Lenovo Taken the Top PC Manufacturer Spot From HP?
angry tapir writes "Lenovo has taken the crown from Hewlett-Packard to become the world's top seller of PCs, research firm Gartner said in a study released this week. Lenovo took the top spot during a quarter in which PC shipments dropped overall due to a weak economy and pressure from mobile devices. Of the top four PC vendors, only Lenovo was able to grow its shipments. Its PC sales increased by almost 10 percent to 13.77 million units, giving it 15.7 percent of the market, Gartner said." Not so fast, says analysis firm IDC. They say that HP is still in the lead but Lenovo is very close.
With that profit margin? Try never.
Apple doesn't make PCs, it's always yelling about how its products are different than PCs :P
They both sell pieces of crap.
At least that's what I learned when the word "Microsoft" is in any of their reports. I would assume that it is that way with everything else too... They're like the Fox News of the tech industry -- it's all about who pays the most.
I suspect that won't happen.
Apple isn't in quite the same market. Apple computers are high end devices and their business model is based on lower number of units at higher per unit profit. Lenovo and HP are perfectly happy to sell to the people who want a low cost machine and make their profit on units sold. Apple aren't really interested in that area because doing so would damage their image
Now now, "high-end" is too strong of a word for what apple makes. They send expensive boutique computers with a generous markup, but the hardware is far from high-end.
As somebody pointed out, they're both really lousy at PCs and sell predominantly to corporate clients. They both use Chinese/Taiwanese components cobbled together in Chinese Factories and then ship them over here. One owns the rights to the old IBM brand and the other owns the rights to the old Compaq and DEC brands, so what's the difference?
Now if only Lenovo would hire Carly Fiorina as CEO, then we'd see a real battle.. Meg vs. Carly and we could host it on pay per view in the Octagon!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/pc-sales-collapse-personal-computer-dead-142733092.html
From multiple separate industry analyist outfits, the overall decline in PC sales is being labeled "shocking" and "unexpected". Many expected PC sales to remain roughly flat as tablet sales increased, but it now seems that at least part of the 8.5% decline is being attributed to customers shifting much of their computing to tablet devices. Some is also being attributed to customers waiting to buy new PCs until Windows 8 ships, which causes a temporary decline, but that is not thought to explain the entire 8.5%.
It looks like the theories that PC sales will hold up in the face of mobile are looking less likely. On the other hand, PC sales will clearly not die entirely, since some applications need that kind of platform. But for the majority of the market which needs only web surfing and facebook integration,, tablets can fill that niche without the complexity and malware danger of a Wintel PC.
we'll be forced to stop calling them PC vendors? its a touch offtopic but worth mentioning. A sound argument can be made that these arent personal computers at all. Each one is mandated to include windows 8, which is basically just an app store. its designed to become obsolete in 2-4 years, and several systems like UEFI and trusted computing prevent the user from ever considering their computer "personal." The "locked down" OS model is already being baked into consumers at the mobile device level and having seen sales in such devices supplant them,PC vendors are likely to file in lock-step to try and match this advantage. Of course you'll get workarounds for businesses much the same as we get them for redhat/centos/ubuntu when we order servers, but the average person to which "personal" applies in PC is probably going to get shafted.
you could also argue the numbers for sales are entirely irrelevant as anyone interested in a real "personal computer" is buying the parts and building it themselves.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Now now, "high-end" is too strong of a word for what apple makes. They send expensive boutique computers with a generous markup, but the hardware is far from high-end.
A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but thinks like the iPad 3's screen or the Retina MBP were pretty unrivaled when they were released. In return, you get gouged pretty good on things like RAM or storage upgrades that are bog standard tech.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I completely agree, since they hqve switched to Intel CPU's they do not use the the top end cpu unless u for up a small fortune. And purchasing a new Apple machine u must make all your choices at the time of purchase and your upgrade options are very limited if u get any other machine then the G5 tower. And I still want one, a G5.
... Apple computers are high end devices ...
You mean "high cost" - and not "high end" exactly !
That is in the top 10 'manufacturers'. While everybody has cut corners over the years HP, Dell, and others went too far. With falling prices in the lat 15 years even the poor can afford top quality systems. People are realizing that Dell and now HP are shipping crap. IBM/Lenovo has been going downhill all along although the difference is the company has made sure to release slightly better quality products than the rest. So it is no wonder people are going Lenovo.
Personally I would not buy Lenovo. They ship systems with digital restrictions and I'm not willing to work around those restrictions just so I can run my choice of GNU/Linux distribution. ThinkPenguin's the way to go now these days. They've been working hard to improve the cooperation between free software developers and chipset manufacturers. There current generation of laptops is amazing and they are working on a new USB N adapter that should work better than anything thats come before (not hard to do considering all USB N adapters on GNU/Linux are crap or dependent on non-free software- there is one older G chipset that works well although no longer readily available- ThinkPenguin did stock up on it before the chipsets demise so GNU/Linux users should be able to get them for a while).
China makes every SKU HP has already !!
Apple's not really that 'high end'. They're making sure they release or announce stuff a day before the competition. That's the extent of it. If you want high end you really need to look elsewhere.
That makes Apple the largest player
"but thinks like the iPad 3's screen or the Retina MBP were pretty unrivaled when they were released."
No, my Samsung S-IPS monitor was already 'Retina' well before Retina was ever a buzzword. That was a few years before the iPad.
6.3M physical pixels in a 32" screen. 206 PPI.
Too bad it was stuck at 1920x1080 and not 5760x3240, though I bet a firmware modification could give it that performance.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
A higher res screen doesn't make the laptop terribly high end. It's just a nice advertising bullet point for idiots that pride themselves in having no clue about what they are buying.
Apple is form over function and design that escalates price for no good reason while also reducing maintainability and useful lifespan.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
PC sales not holding up at current levels does not = the pc is dead. Not by a long shot. I expect much greater decline in pc sales as the "websurfing" crowd switch. People who use computers for work, engineers, geeks, etc will still be using pc type systems for a long time to come. It does mean high volume low quality manufacturers such as HP have something to worry about if they don't change their current business model.
There's nothing special about Retina displays. They're not a new technology or anything like that, it's just a marketing label applied to displays with a certain pixel density. Nobody was competing on PPI before that because the market didn't care. It was only after Apple applied their marketing whammy that people started asking for it.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I don't care if HP computers are made from magic; the bloatware that they come with is intolerable and that stupid cheap "\|" key they put as half of the left shift key is rage inducing.
A while back I gave my family a very short list of computers that I would help them with. HP is not on that list. They buy something off the list and they are on their own. Sign number one that a computer company hates their users is when they put that crap Norton Trialware on the computer.
People keep blah blahing about a Post-PC world coming due to tablets and smart phones. I say it all started to die the day that some MBA came up with the business model of selling a computer really cheap and then trying to screw the customer with all he money / time sucking bloatware.
Another good example of where HP went wrong was with their printer drivers. I print maybe once a month. Thus I don't want the driver running full time in the background. It should be about 3 megs of software that takes my document and prints it. I don't need to manage the print jobs, redirect them, manage supplies, or anything else. These should be optional programs that I could install on say a machine that prints all day long. But no they want me to download 200megs of crap that then installs all kinds of document management crap. This just drives me to make sure that I buy an older used printer that has drivers built into the OS.
I always laugh at those pictures of Jumbotron screens where a Norton AV subscription reminder has come up mid game but that is not so much the fault of the Jumbotron people as it is the greed of companies like HP.
But this crap is now creeping into smartphones. Rogers even put McAfee AV on his Android smartphone.
Actually, your options are REALLY limited with a G5 tower.
Since they stopped making them six years ago.
With that growth rate? Try next year.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I've bought many laptops, and thinkpads, even recent ones, are still clearly the best laptops on the market.
Great build, great keyboard.
Pricey, but has all the best hardware possible, and it works well on linux.
Everything a demanding software engineer might need.
Ehh... not to back apple or anything, but I thought they always prided themselves on usability, you can't break it no matter how much you click around, and you can intuitively find most things. Having said that, we can use the word "idiots" in a whole different light: those who can't use a PC w/o breaking it.
I'm confused... You're basically agreeing that Joe Average will be using an iPad at home, that Joe Factory Worker will be using an iPad to control his machinery, and that Joe Salesman will be using a high end MacBook to type his reports. And you're still arguing that the PCs isn't dead for all intents and purposes?
Apple's not really that 'high end'. They're making sure they release or announce stuff a day before the competition. That's the extent of it. If you want high end you really need to look elsewhere.
You mean like they did with the iPhone 5, when competitors scrambled to toss in an event in the weeks leading to the rumored Apple event date, in the hopes to steal some press time before it's too late? Wasn't that the case for the previous couple of iPhones too?
All of them. They remain useful until they are completely broken, thrashed, just worn the fuck out dead.
That's why they are doing well. I pay a lot for mine, run them hard, and when they are behind the curve, they get cycled home for various things, until they finally just don't work, and that process is generally painless too.
I like the matte black finish. It's not sexy, but it endures way better than the shiny, "please don't scratch it" finishes on so many machines do. Maybe starting out a little less sexy has it's advantages. Black is damn cool in my book, and there is always that little brightly colored something on the machines, sort of like a great tie on an otherwise boring business suit. Perfect.
The keyboards are a bit noisy, but I like that too. Always have. I can type and type and type until the buttons are all worn, and they just keep going great, no worries.
Heavy little buggers, if you buy the more powerful ones. If I need to clock somebody with my laptop, Lenovo is there! No worries, and I can probably post to Facebook after doing it too.
Linux is well supported across most of the machines. I love that. A Think Pad was the first machine I ran OS X on too. Worked amazingly well, and was faster than the Mac I ended up getting soon after. Gotta admit, the touch pad on the Mac is better tho, but not by much. Some Think Pad touch pads need to be worn in. Once that has happened, they work much better. Weird.
By and large, I leave most of the value added software on the machines. It works well. HP is noisy, Dell just horrible, etc.... I get a competent disc burning kit, defrag tools, etc... Nice package that actually has some real value. On my latest machine they even tossed in the nVidia 3D licenses. Didn't know that, until I connected up to a new TV for some 3D CAD tests. Nice!! That's $14.99 for most of you out there.
Funny thing is I was not a fan early on. One ended up at the house, and I started using it. By the time I got it, the machine was a bit dated, but damn if it wasn't just great to use. When it outlasted some HP thing or other, I was sold. Typically, I get a top machine for work purposes. Need big RAM / CPU, nVidia, etc... Once it's done, it goes home for micro-controller related projects. Long life cycle on these. Worth it.
And... matte finish displays that are typically nice, bright, with fine dot pitches. They've wavered a bit on these on some models as of late. Gotta be a bit picky about that, but so has everybody else. Get the better display they offer, and it's no worry.
The few times I've ordered replacement things under warranty, they shipped 'em, the work wasn't hard. Once the machine ends up at home, I find I can service it much easier than I can the HP machines, which incorporate all manner of fiddly components, glue, buttons that fail, etc... Ugh. Dell sometimes does better, and is in my mind, competitive on this front. Apple? Difficult, but then their stuff works a long time too. Fair game they are playing, but HP is just losing big on this front. Get an HP, and you better hope it works, or service might be very difficult no matter who does it.
I expected some of this to fade when IBM let go to Lenovo. Very pleased to see they've kept the bar high so far. Hoping they continue.
Blogging because I can...
Has Netcraft confirmed it?
One day they're at the top, the next day they say they're getting out of the PC business, then they say they were just kidding about that and they're back in the PC business. If I were purchasing equipment for my company, there's no way in Hell I'd buy HP. I'm not buying computers from a company that can't decide whether or not they want to be in the business of selling me computers.
I saw Apple mentioned above so I'll touch on my feelings about them. They've made it very clear the last few years that they have no interest in the corporate or professional markets. They killed their server and RAID products years ago. That ended their footprint in IT which is how you get your equipment into the corporate world. More recently, they neutered Final Cut. They spent years building that product and actually became the go-to platform for the video production industry and now editors are scrambling to switch over to Avid before their next hardware cycle because they don't feel like they can count on Apple to produce a pro-quality application in the future.
Apple's decisions make perfect sense from a financial standpoint. IT departments are tough, demanding customers. Low margin and high maintenance. As for the professional market, Apple might sell xx,xxx copies of FCP at a thousand bucks each where they'll sell xxx,xxx copies of FCX at $300 to casual users. Companies and professionals tend to spend once and use their equipment for years before spending any more money. Casual users are a constant stream of small purchases through itunes, peripherals, phones, etc. The "lifestyle" customer is a steadier flow of income from multiple streams.
No, my Samsung S-IPS monitor was already 'Retina' well before Retina was ever a buzzword. That was a few years before the iPad. 6.3M physical pixels in a 32" screen. 206 PPI. Too bad it was stuck at 1920x1080 and not 5760x3240, though I bet a firmware modification could give it that performance.
Uh, so a firmware upgrade would turn your 6.3M physical pixels into a 5760x3240 = 18.7MP display? And LCD panels have only one native resolution, so if it was 1920x1080 then I'm guessing your 6,3 million "pixels" is 1920x1080xRGB? I'm sorry, but that's not the way we count them...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Apple declined along with the rest of the industry (Lenovo excluded). They're losing ground, not gaining.
Aww, sounds like someone's upset he didn't get a Mac for Christmas.
I know a chap who purchased a HP 17" widescreen laptop a few years back. About a month after the warranty expired, HP sent through a BIOS update which bricked the entire machine. He called HP support and said "Your update bricked my laptop" .. support's response "Your machine is out of warranty, that's going to cost $1200 to repair".
When you stop caring about your core business to save money or make a little extra cash on the side, well .. there's no turning back. HP have lost the trust.
There's nothing special about Retina displays. They're not a new technology or anything like that, it's just a marketing label applied to displays with a certain pixel density. Nobody was competing on PPI before that because the market didn't care. It was only after Apple applied their marketing whammy that people started asking for it.
Oh please how many people have we got here on slashdot that cry over 1920x1200 vs 1920x1080? The market didn't care given the ridiculous premiums, sure IBM offered a 4K monitor back in 2001 for $18k - I wonder why people didn't buy it? By your standards Henry Ford did nothing special, the car was well invented before he got involved. Oh and OS support, also had nothing to do with it. It was absolutely all Apple's marketing machine.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Now now, "high-end" is too strong of a word for what apple makes. They send expensive boutique computers with a generous markup, but the hardware is far from high-end.
A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but thinks like the iPad 3's screen or the Retina MBP were pretty unrivaled when they were released. In return, you get gouged pretty good on things like RAM or storage upgrades that are bog standard tech.
No, a high res screen does not make them "unrivalled".
We gave a GIS (mapping) application running on Ipad and Android. The Ipad may have more resolution but the layers are put together client side (this is so we can update a layer without updating the entire map image) and the 1 year old Acer Iconia is 3-5 faster than the brand new Ipad 3. Screen resolution is a gimmick to disguise the fact that it cant do real gruntwork.
It's the same with the MBP's, My sub $900 Asus has several times the power of the MBP due to having a dedicated Geforce 640m. As a gamer, a nice screen is important but it's completely useless if I have to run it at 1200x800 because the $2000 laptop runs an Intel GMA.
BTW, when it comes to phones I prefer the battery life I get out of the AMOLED on by GNex.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Wonderful little lappy. Hard as nails and Ubuntu installs perfectly, _everything_ works ootb.
Even makes Windows7 enjoyable and I'm really looking forward to a clean W8 install next month!
I always thought I'd never buy a not-mac. Now I can't imagine not buying Lenovo
Fixing a Lenovo or a thinkpad is a quick buck. Fixing an HP is an ordeal. Why's it have to be so complicated; All I wanted to do was clean the fan!
Funny they've been saying that for a decade now and it still hasn't happened. Poor Apple doesn't realize they aren't the only one growing.
A lot of verbiage to say something simple. Lenovo controls a slightly smaller percentage of the market, but their shipments increased 10% while HP's decreased 16% (info somewhat from memory, read an article about this earlier today). So make your own conclusions. This "not so fast... this other guy says..." nonsense is just silly.
I felt the same way, I felt that MBP just cannot compete in terms of horsepower. I bought an Acer 5750G, 2.5GHz i5, 750GB HDD Geforce 630M, 8GB RAM = $1000 NZD
The cheapest MacBook Pro had a 2.4GHz i5, 500GB HDD, no dedicated graphics, 4GB RAM = $1900 NZD. My friend bought one of these thinking he was going to be editing HD videos...
The only real difference that mattered to me was that his screen had 32 more vertical pixels.
These guys monitor supply chains, and they include tables with PCs, which gives their top spot to Apple, the next to HP, and Lenovo comes in third:
http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/2012-will-bring-new-world-record-pc-shipments
I give Apple a credit for making hi-res mainstream. I'm typing it on IBM (Lenovo) T60 15'', retrofitted with t61 motherboard, intel t9300 2.5 GHz C2D, and QXGA (2048x1536) 4:3 IPS display, that I recently assembled from 'as new' parts.
Display was made sometime before 2006, so technology was there all the time, nobody just cared to make laptop out of it. Last laptop with this display was made by IBM around 2005, luckily display is compatible with slightly newer T60 laptop shell, which is compatible with slightly more newer T61 motherboard.
Interestingly my 5750G seems to run Hackintosh quite nicely.
They should port Mountain Lion to A5 or A6, and then make Airbooks out of them. By now, they must be having portability nailed. Do that, and they can lower their costs, and prices some, and Airbook too can make strides similar to iPads.
It's still not Dell?
I had a business-class HP 17", an EliteBook no less. It had the QuadroFX die bonding failure. In spite of it having a replaceable video card, HP had no replacement. (If you design a machine with an MXM slot, you are a stupid fuck. What a waste of money. Put the GPU onboard.) HP sent out a contract tech twice. Failed to fix it the first time, machine wouldn't even boot after his second visit. Took over 24 hours on the phone total to get a replacement machine. They sent me a significantly upgraded machine. I sold it immediately, and bought three netbooks. EEE701, fantastic. Acer Aspire, fantastic. Gateway LT series, I'm an idiot. The other two machines are still making me happy though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If Lenovo is now the top dog, they need to get their supply chain management issues under control quickly. I bought a new laptop on 9/21 and yesterday I received a notice saying that the laptop will most likely be delayed until 10/21.
This sounds like the type of issue HP would have so I guess Lenovo really has taken over....
If this is the case how come I never get any in for repairs? Is the quality better? Are they more popular in commercial industry then in consumer? If thats the case why do I not see any businesses with Lenovo's?
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Wouldn't touch an HP with a 10 foot clown pole.
but I love me some thinkpads.
Sorry, my math went off, too much beer.
Take the monitor, open up paint.
Make a single white pixel on a black background.
Take a microscope to the lit up 'pixel'
See that it's not a single pixel, rather a 3x3 group of pixels lit up. 9 physical pixels (27 RGB subpixels) to make a single pixel.
So, yea, 18.7MP display, not 6.3MP.
Still, a firmware update probably is possible to get that resolution - the hardware is already obviously there, otherwise it couldn't drive all of those pixels.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
How are the mid to high range dells these days? Say a Latitude or Precision laptop?
I love Thinkpads but it'd be nice to think there is some competition beyond Lenovo and Apple for halfway decent hardware.
And they've already made it to third place. From like dead last.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Tablets are a gimmick. Sure, some people like them and they have some niches, but I fully expect them to be like the netbook in a few years. The real reason for the decline of PC sales that people just don't feel the need to upgrade like they used to. The service life a PC has gone from 3-5 years to 7-10 years.
Nearly all of them have i7 processors. Many have solid state drives as standard. Even the cheapest have competent graphics hardware. They have higher resolution displays than most other machines of the same screen size.
A Windows based laptop with the same specs would be considered high end even if it did cost less than the Apple equivalent.