HP Sells More PCs Than Dell, But Faces Lawsuit
The same company whose board of directors now faces the prospects of civil lawsuits from shareholders regarding their recent conduct in investigating the source of boardroom leaks, is now the world’s leading PC producer in both shipments and sales, according to hardware analysis firm iSuppli.
You wouldn’t think it was the same company. According to the latest iSuppli report released this morning, HP’s worldwide unit shipment growth over the third quarter of this year was 16.7%, to 9.86 million units. This gives HP a 16.5% market share in shipments versus Dell’s 16.3% share, with 9.78 million units shipped.
While the rate of general PC industry growth, by most estimates, has declined to an annual rate about 8%, HP’s shipment growth is 16.7%, while Dell’s is a mere 3.4%.
The news is also good for #4 Acer and #5 Toshiba, whose year-to-year growth rates for the last quarter checked in at 29% and 24%, respectively. While they hold 5.4% and 4.1% market share, they’re bringing up the rear awfully fast, gaining distance over all the other players (Lenovo is safely tucked into the #3 slot) whose status earns them the unwanted collective title, “Others.”
Last month, iSuppli reported HP surpassed Dell on the worldwide scale based on preliminary sales estimates. Today’s corrected numbers clip both Dell’s and HP’s worldwide market share by a few tenths, but widens the gap between the two.
Yet today is the kind of news day for HP that warrants Johnny Carson’s old lead-in, “There’s good news and bad news today.” Legal action against the company being taken by the California state attorney general has been compounded, according to BusinessWeek, by a new class-action civil suit filed in Santa Clara County on behalf of all HP shareholders.
The claim is insider trading: essentially that HP corporate executives, on the eve of public revelations of the boardroom investigation scandal, sold off as much as $41.3 million of company stock, with the objection of cashing in before their stock value went into free-fall.
To add just the right touch of irony to the story, HP’s swelling fortunes in the sales and revenues department, as first revealed by iSuppli and confirmed by financial analysts, managed to counteract any negative pressure on HP stock. As a result, downturns in value were short-lived, selling now for 8% higher value than when the news was revealed. Executives would have been better off holding onto their shares. In hindsight, they might also have preferred to have read the memo about their rising sales.