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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.
How much time before Apple is larger than both?
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.
"The Company sold 20.34 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 142 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during the quarter, a 183 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 3.95 million Macs during the quarter, a 14 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.54 million iPods, a 20 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter."
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/07/19Apple-Reports-Third-Quarter-Results.html
Apple makes pretty good profit, of course. Would love to know what the Lenovo and HP sales translate into for Microsoft OS & apps, so we can do a profitability comparison.
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.
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 !!
That makes Apple the largest player
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.