By Katie Marsal
Published: 11:00 AM EST (08:00 AM PST)
Brisk sales of Apple's MacBook product lines have seen the company's share of the North American notebook market surge more than 60 percent on a yearly basis through the second quarter of the year, according DisplaySearch.
In a quarterly notebook shipment report released Wednesday, the NPD-owned firm reported that the Mac maker's share rose from 6.6 percent in the second quarter of 2007 to 10.6 percent for the three-month period ending June -- the largest jump out of all PC manufacturers doing business in the region.
Apple's success came largely at the expense of rivals Toshiba and Acer, both of which saw significant declines in their share of the market during the same 12-month period. In particular, Acer saw its share fall some 22.5 percent from 18.6 percent to 14.4 percent, while Toshiba's share fell 21 percent from 11.4 percent to 9 percent.
"The data calls into question Acer’s acquisition of both Gateway/eMachines and Packard Bell," said John Jacobs, Director of Notebook Market Research for DisplaySearch. "While the move immediately prevented competitors from getting more of a foothold in the rapidly growing US and European retail notebook PC sectors, the last few quarters' results clearly show that Acer is struggling to integrate the Gateway and Packard Bell brands into their portfolio."
Acer's share of the notebook market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) was also down from 20.9 percent to 17.9 percent, while Toshiba saw marginal success by boosting its share a little over 2 percentage points to 11.7 percent.
"Both Gateway and Packard Bell were losing notebook PC market share prior to their acquisition, but the acquisition has failed to reverse, or even halt that trend,” Jacobs added.
Apple did not rank amongst the EMEA's the top five notebook vendors.
Overall, 13.3-inch to 16.0-inch notebooks saw the largest growth during the second quarter of the year, accounting for more than 88 percent of notebook shipments, according to DisplaySearch. Desktop Replacement Notebook PCs, or those having a 17.0-inch or larger display, fell to just 7.5 percent market share after having been close to 10 percent share during the same period last year.
Ultraportable systems with screens ranging in size of from 10.4-inches to 12.1-inches continued to struggle, with their share shrinking to just 4 percent of the market.
