Lenovo beats HP as No.1 PC firm

Lenovo overtook Hewlett-Packard to become the world's No.1 personal computer maker in the second quarter of this year, Gartner and IDC both said in their latest reports.

Lenovo shipped 12.6 million PCs, or 16.7 percent of global PC sales, in the second quarter, IDC said. HP shipped 12.4 million PCs, which marked a 16.4-percent share, in the same period. Gartner data, meanwhile, showed that the Chinese PC maker shipped 0.4 percent more PCs than HP.

This was the first time both research firms agreed that Lenovo is the biggest PC maker.

Overtaking HP is a milestone for Lenovo which saw its computer shipments fall 1.4 percent annually between April and June. But the drop was the smallest decline in the quarter compared to other firms in the top five which also include Dell, Acer and ASUS.

The drop was attributed to China, which accounts for over 50 percent of Lenovo shipments, where short-term economic weakness and inventory problems cut into second quarter shipments, according to IDC.

Lenovo did briefly pass HP as the No. 1 PC supplier in the third quarter of last year, according to data released by Gartner. IDC, however, still maintained that HP was the largest PC maker in the same period.