Taipei, Jan. 13 (CNA) Taiwan's Acer Inc. lost it's world No. 3 title with a 10-percent global market share to Dell Inc. in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to local research firm Digitimes Research.

Acer shipments dropped by more than 15 percent annually in the fourth quarter of last year due to rising inventory levels, leading to the loss of the spot to the U.S. rival, the Taipei-based firm said.

In fifth place was Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc., behind Acer by only 0.2 percentage points, the firm noted in a statement released on Jan. 11.

China's Lenovo Group Ltd, on the other hand, shipped a record high, in the company's history, of 8 million notebook computers in the fourth quarter due to strong overseas market performance, but it did not beat Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) to the world's No. 1 position, given HP's steady performance over the last two quarters, the Taiwanese research firm explained.

Global notebook computer shipments reached 48.51 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, an increase of 2.5 percent from the third quarter, because of Windows 7 sales at year-end, it said. The figure is better than its estimated 0.7 percent increase, it added.

Global shipments in 2012, however, reached only 194 million units, posting a negative 4.5-percent year-on-year growth, according to the firm.

Meanwhile, global shipments of personal computers for 2012 fell 3.2 percent to 352.42 million units from a year earlier as smartphones and tablet computers stole the market spotlight, market information advisory firm International Data Corp. said on Jan. 11.

Acer was the fourth-largest PC vendor worldwide with 33.49 million global shipments of PC units, while Asustek finished in fifth place with 24.13 million units.

HP remained the world's largest PC vendor in 2012, shipping 58.13 million units, while Lenovo ranked as the second-largest PC vendor last year, shipping 52.45 million units.

Dell was third, with 38.72 million units.

(By Christie Chen and Jeffrey Wu)
ENDITEM/Sian/tc