The top five brands saw a 32 percent month-over-month and 8 percent year-over-year boost in laptop sales. However, DigiTimes Research believes some of the extra orders were generated by extra inventory, as analysts believe vendors increased inventory to protect themselves against component shortages.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) had an on-month shipment growth of over 50% in May and was the most aggressive vendor among the top-5. Lenovo returned to the second place after shifting its focus back to the PC business. Dell, despite having slipped to the third place, achieved an on-year growth stronger than all of its competitors in the top-5, by obtaining a large volume of procurement orders from North America's education sector.The top three original device makers (ODMs) saw a 26 percent month-over-month growth in shipments in May. These are the firms that actually manufacture the laptops.