Hewlett-Packard Co probably sacrificed profit margin to win market share in the fourth quarter, when it retook its spot as the top personal-computer maker from Lenovo Group Ltd, Gartner Inc said Monday.
While Lenovo's sales growth of 8.2 percent from a year earlier was the fastest of the top-five computer makers, HP's dominance in professional PCs helped it retake the lead from Lenovo, Gartner said in a report. HP shipped 16.2 percent of PCs last quarter compared with 15.5 percent a year earlier.
Meg Whitman, Palo Alto, California-based HP's fourth chief executive officer in two-and-a-half years, is fighting to reverse declines as customers eschew computers for tablets and smartphones. Globally, PC shipments dropped 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier to 90.4 million units.
"Tablets have dramatically changed the device landscape for PCs, not so much by cannibalizing PC sales, but by causing PC users to shift consumption to tablets rather than replacing older PCs," Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner, said in the report. "This transformation was triggered by the availability of low-cost tablets in 2012."
HP's adjusted earnings per share will probably drop to US$3.30 for the fiscal year ending on October 31 from US$4.05 a year earlier, according to the average of analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg News. The company is mulling the sale of underperforming units as it works to mitigate the effects of botched acquisitions and declining revenue.
Lenovo's PC market share grew to 15.5 percent in the fourth quarter from 13.6 percent a year earlier, Gartner said. Beijing-based Lenovo held the lead for one quarter after surpassing HP in the third quarter of 2012, breaking its competitor's six-year reign as the top PC maker.