Hewlett-Packard (HP) is expected to be the largest notebook brand vendor in the fourth quarter with shipments of 7.6 million units, leading Lenovo at 7.2 million, Dell (5.2 million), Acer (4.6 million) and Asustek Computer (4.5 million), according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Growing demand in the enterprise notebook market in the second half of the year helped HP to maintain strong shipments and Microsoft's plans of halting its supports for Windows XP are also expected to push more enterprises to replace their PCs in 2014.
HP is also seeing growth in the government procurement segment. HP recently acquired orders from North America and India, but because of the products' low prices, related supply chain players are expected to see weak profits.
In the third quarter, Lenovo ordered 8.22 million notebooks from the supply chain, while HP ordered 8.7 million units, according to Digitimes Research's latest figures. As for the sales, HP sold 8.35 million notebooks, while Lenovo sold 8.3 million units, IDC's figures show.
