Acer is showing strength in the global PC industry, becoming the world's third largest PC maker in the first quarter of 2007, according to data from research firm iSuppli.

The Taiwanese company posted a 42.7 percent increase in shipments over the same quarter last year. That was enough for Acer to take the third spot from rival Lenovo. The Chinese PC manufacturer still leads in desktop PC shipments, but Acer's widening lead in notebooks gave it the number 3 spot overall.

"Acer has momentum, is competing aggressively, and its strong channel presence is clearly paying dividends for both desktop and notebook shipments," iSuppli analyst Matthew Wilkins said in a statement.

However, even with such impressive growth, Acer has a long way before it catches up to second place Dell. Some 7.6 percent separate the two, and Wilkins said Acer would have to essentially double its shipments to catch up.

Dell is having troubles of its own: it was the only company of the top five to post a year-over-year decline, with shipments falling some 6.8 percent. The former largest computer maker now holds a 14.4 percent market share behind current leader Hewlett Packard at 17.2 percent.

The success of Asian OEMs is evident in the survey, as manufacturers from that region are showing the biggest shipment gains of any of the tracked companies according to iSuppli.

"The power of the Asian PC OEMs is increasing, as we can see by the fact that these companies together accounted for 34 percent of total shipments from the Top-10 PC OEMs in the first quarter of 2007, up from 31 percent during the same period in 2006," Wilkins said.