Computer maker Lenovo has overtaken Dell in the worldwide shipments of PCs, catapulting it into the number-two spot with 13.5 percent of the market, according to analytics company Gartner. This puts it right behind Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), which maintains an iron grip at the top spot with 17.7 percent of the market share. HP's share grew 0.4 percent when compared to the same quarter in 2010. As reported by ZDNet, Lenovo credited the increase to the company's long-term promise to PC customers, which helped the company sell more PCs to both consumers and businesses.

Dell wasn't phased by Lenovo's growth however. Dell CEO Michael Dell told reporters that his company remains better at revenue and profit, in spite of Lenovo gaining a slightly larger slice of the PC market. He said that Dell is a solutions company that also sells storage and server that fuels both data centers and the current trend towards cloud computing.

Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner said the PC market in the United States is weak--adding that media tablets and smartphones are competing for the consumer market. Finally, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) was highlighted as the most improved. It experienced the strongest growth of the top five PC vendors in the U.S. market, with a growth rate of 21.5 percent in the third quarter alone.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at eWeek
- check out this article at ZDNet
- check out this article at MarketWatch

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