Darian Bird, IDC analyst, said the positive year-on-year figure was "encouraging," but cautioned that the impact on corporate and consumer confidence of the Bali bombings and the overall economic outlook would play a key role in the market's ongoing performance.
"Many businesses are still cautious about IT spending and IT managers are holding off until the last moment to sign the cheques," Bird said in a statement.
While the third-quarter estimate represented a 6.2 per cent decline from the first quarter of 2002, Bird said the usual third-quarter slump was not as pronounced as in recent years.
Hewlett-Packard recorded market share of 18.9 percent for the quarter, down from 22.5 percent in the second quarter 2002, well ahead of Dell with 11 percent and IBM with nine per cent. HP also dominated the desktop and Intel server market. However, Acer recorded the highest level of improvement, stepping up its share of the desktop market from 2.5 percent in the third quarter of 2001 to 7.3 percent in the most recent quarter.
