Asia Pacific PC sales up 22 percent in second quarter: IDC

SINGAPORE (AFP) - Sales of personal computers in the Asia Pacific region outside of Japan rose 22 percent to 14.3 million units in the second quarter to June, buoyed by strong demand for notebooks, an industry report said Friday.

Compared with the first quarter, growth came in at 11 percent, global research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said.

"Portable PCs, in particular, picked up the pace again this quarter with year-on-year growth rates not seen in over a year," said IDC analyst Bryan Ma.

Portables grew faster, partly because of retail promotions in markets such as China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Vietnam, he said.

Ma said that with this pace of growth, "we can expect the 2007 notebook market to clear 17 million units with ease."

China's Lenovo was the top vendor with a 20.7 percent market share during the quarter, up from 17.7 percent in the first, due to strong notebook sales in its home market, IDC said.

US computer giant Hewlett-Packard had a 16 percent market share to be in second place, while rival Dell was third with 8.5 percent and Taiwan's Acer fourth on 6.5 percent, the research firm said.