HP has retained its premier position in the worldwide PC market, maintaining five consecutive quarters in the top position.

According to analyst Gartner, HP's growth rate of 34.4 per cent exceeded the averages across all regions and was well above the worldwide figure.

The firm's strong performance in the consumer and small business segments helped the company take share from under-performing vendors such as Dell and Fujitsu-Siemens, said Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst for Gartner’s client computing markets group.

“HP reached 20 per cent market share of the Europe, Middle East and Africa PC market for the first time and now ships one in every five PCs sold in the region,” he said.

The Gartner report also found worldwide PC shipments totalled 68.5 million units in the third quarter of 2007, a 14.4 percent increase from the same period last year.

The increase was driven by PC shipments in Asia/Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which increased 23.4 per cent and 16.4 per cent respectively, while PC shipments in the US grew 4.7 per cent - below Gartner's forecast of 6.7 per cent growth.

PC shipments in Europe grew above expectations, said Atwal.

“Given the current economic uncertainty, it did not stop businesses and consumers purchasing PCs; this reflects the changing status of the PC from a luxury purchase to one of necessity,” he said.

The top five vendors continued to increase their share to take up more than half of the European market.