EL SEGUNDO, CA — Global notebook PC shipments exceeded those of desktops on a quarterly basis for the first time ever in the third quarter, according to iSuppli Corp. 

Notebook PC shipments rose almost 40% in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007 to reach 38.6 million units. Conversely, desktop PC shipments declined by 1.3% for the same period to 38.5 million units.

“Momentum has been building in the notebook market for some time, so it’s not a complete surprise that shipments have surpassed those of desktops,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms at iSuppli. “However, this marks the start of the age of the notebook. The notebook is ... now a computer for everyman.”

The notebook’s ascension to PC supremacy came during a strong quarter for the overall market. “While the third quarter will be remembered as the time when the scale of the global economic/credit crunch truly became apparent, the PC market managed to deliver strong unit shipment growth during the period,” Wilkins noted. Worldwide PC unit shipments rose 15.4% year-over-year, with 79 million units shipped, topping previous iSuppli’estimates of 12%.

There were no changes to the Top-5 PC OEM listings and rankings for the third quarter, according to iSuppli. H-P retained its No.-1 ranking with shipments of 14.9 million units and a market share of 18.8%. Dell was second with shipments of slightly less than 11 million units (13.9% share). No. 3 was Acer with shipments of 9.7 million units (12.2% share). Lenovo and Toshiba ranked fourth and fifth, with market shares of 7.5% and 4.6%, respectively.

Acer's shipment share rose 45% sequentially and 79% year-over-year, on strong demand for netbooks.

Among other vendors, Asustek was sixth, while Apple lost almost half a point of market share on a sequential basis at 3.2%, placing it seventh. 

On the strength of the third-quarter numbers, iSuppli slightly raised its 2008 unit growth forecast from 12.5% to 13%. The firm's revised 2009 outlook calls for PC unit growth of 4.3%.

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