Apple PC shipments up 39.3%

Unsurprisingly, Apple saw the largest year-over-year growth—a meaty 39.3%, which is almost three times the 14.2% market growth rate, allowing the iPod maker to retain the number six position it snagged in Q3. iSuppli says Apple was equally strong on both desktop and notebook fronts, and comments, "Apple's reinvigorated Intel microprocessor-based products obviously are striking a chord with PC buyers." Despite the growth, Apple's Q4 market share was only 2.9%.

Meanwhile, Dell didn't manage to edge out HP on the worldwide stage, but it grew shipments 17.4% year-over-year and 14.1% compared to the third quarter. That's much better than the paltry 1.5% year-over-year growth the company saw in Q3. Overall, the Texan PC vendor shipped about 11.3 million systems to HP's 14.6 million in Q4, pegging its share of the market at just under 15%. HP is still riding high with a 19.1% share of all shipments and yearly growth of 25.5%.

Another noteworthy event in the PC market last quarter was Acer's acquisition of Gateway, which propelled the Taiwanese company from fourth to third place globally. Acer had almost 10% of shipments in Q4, putting it well ahead of Lenovo, whose slice of the pie was only around 8%. As for Toshiba, it remained in fifth place with exactly 4% of worldwide shipments.