Both IDC and Gartner reported worldwide shipments of PCs were up strongly in the second quarter, thanks to surge in demand in the Far East and surprisingly brisk sales in the US.

IDC said that shipments were up 12.5 percent to 58.8 million units, while Gartner said 61.1 million PCs were shipped, resulting in 11.7 percent increase. The methodology used differs from company to company, resulting in the different figures.

Either way, the numbers came as somewhat of a surprise after shipments had slowed during much of 2006. Windows Vista did not have much of an impact on sales either when it released in January, Gartner said.

"New product announcements are likely to stimulate demand in the coming months," David Daoud, IDC's manager of Personal Computing and PC Tracker Programs said. "However, IDC warns that a return to double-digit growth in the U.S. market will be difficult to achieve."

Eastern Asia was the fastest growing market with sales up over 20 percent. Laptops spurred much of this growth. In the US, shipments were up 5.9 percent according to Gartner and 7.2 percent with IDC.

HP was the top seller of PCs, building on its lead over Dell, which formerly was the world's top manufacturer. Gartner put the two companies at a 18.2 and 16.1 percent market share, while IDC pegged them at 19.3 and 15 percent respectively.

Lenovo, Acer, and Toshiba rounded out the top five worldwide according to both companies.

In the US, Dell maintained its first place spot in both surveys, although in both cases HP showed momentum as the second place manufacturer. IDC placed Gateway, Apple, and Toshiba as rounding out the top five, while Gartner listed Gateway, Acer, and Toshiba.

"Dell had difficulties in its consumer business," Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner's Client Computing Markets group said. "Dell made its first major retail shipments to Wal-Mart stores, however volumes were not significant enough to influence its growth performance in the quarter."