Personal computer sales had a strong showing in the third quarter of this year despite the credit crunch. However the real surprise came as Notebook PC sales passed those of Desktops for the first time in history.

iSuppli reports that overall combined sales of personal computers were up 15.4 percent year over year in the third quarter. Hewlett-Packard maintained its standing as the number one PC manufacturer and the top five OEMs remained unchanged.

Most of the growth in the overall sales was due to a tremendous 40 percent gain in notebook PC sales. This growth offset a 1.3 percent decline in desktop sales.

One standout in sales growth was Taiwan-based computer maker Acer. The company managed to grow sales 79 percent year over year based at least partially on the popularity of its Aspire One netbook product. Acer now trails Dell’s overall share of the total PC market by less than 2 percent.

It’s not clear how much of the growth was due to sales of netbooks, but the diminutive cousin of the laptop has certainly been making waves. Generally netbooks have the disadvantage of less storage, but the solid state drives used in the devices are quickly catching up.

Another interesting trend in the third quarter was Apple’s market share slipping by about a half point. This loss occurred in spite of the release of the celebrated MacBook Air release earlier in the year.

iSuppli revised its full year outlook to 13 percent up from 12.5 percent. However much of the difference will likely rely on the strength of 2008 holiday retail sales.

So are all you good boys and girls unwrapping a brand new desktop or laptop this year? Or are you hoping that Santa will drop a netbook on your doorstep on his way back to the North Pole?

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Entry was posted on Thursday, December 25th, 2008 at 1:25 pm under Notebook, Retail, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Jeyes.
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