Notebook shipments jump 5 percent in second quarter, DigiTime says

Echoing previous reports of stagnant or slight movement in the PC market, a July 2012 study from DigiTimes Research finds notebook computer shipments increased 5 percent sequentially in the second quarter.

The news provider reports that only three major manufacturers -- Lenovo®, Acer® and ASUS® -- saw any real growth during the quarter, while others -- HP, Dell and Toshiba -- all saw shipments drop between 4 and 7 percent. DigiTimes notes that Lenovo continues to close the gap with HP for the No. 1 spot in the notebook vendor market, coming within 500,000 units during the second quarter.

Compared to a year earlier, overall second-quarter notebook shipments declined 1.8 percent, according to DigiTimes, reaching slightly more than 50 million units. DigiTimes points to overstocked inventories and a weakening economy as the major reasons for the drop.

These figures are largely reflective of an earlier study from Gartner, which also points to positive quarters for Lenovo, ASUS and Acer. Gartner's study looks at the PC market as a whole -- as opposed to only notebooks -- finding that shipments declined 0.1 percent year over year for the quarter.