Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Acer saw their shares in the global notebook market decline to 18.5% and 14.8%, respectively, in the first quarter of 2011, down from 20.2% and 14.9% in the previous quarter, according to IDC data. Combined first-quarter notebook shipments of the top-two vendors were down 3.3 million from the previous quarter.

But most of the other top-10 players, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, Asustek Computer, Samsung Electronics and Apple, all saw growth in their market share in the first quarter. Japan-based Sony and Fujitsu both lost ground.

Source from notebook makers pointed out that the notebook market in Europe has been sluggish for the past two years and even price cuts by brand vendors in the past few quarter have failed to stimulate demand. HP and Acer, both of which have a high proportion of sales coming from Europe, have suffered much.

HP's performance in other markets has also worsened. Its notebook market share in the Middle East and Africa dropped from 22.1% in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 21.5% in the first quarter of 2011, while its share in the US even dropped from 28.6% to 24.5% during the same period.

Acer, affected by declining sales for its Aspire One netbooks in the US, saw its notebook market share in the country drop from 13.8% in the third quarter of 2010 to 11.1% in the fourth quarter of 2010, and further to 10.5% in the first quarter of 2011.

Meanwhile, among the top-10 brands, Apple and Samsung are the only vendors still able to achieve stable shipment growth, especially Apple, whose pricing for the MacBook series are now at friendlier levels. Apple's strategy of pricing its MacBook Air at a mainstream price level helped boost the company's notebook market share to 5.7% in the first quarter of 2011.

Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, Asustek, Samsung and Apple all achieved good results in the US market in the first quarter of 2011. Dell also saw its notebook market share in China break the 12% mark. Lenovo, which still dominated China's notebook market, achieved a global notebook market share that was the same as Toshiba's.

Source: IDC, compiled by Digitimes, April 2011