Laptop Sales Zip Past Desktops

The demand for Acer Netbooks has pushed laptop sales beyond desktop PC sales for the first time ever, CNET reports. Notebook PC shipments rose almost 40% for the third quarter of 2008 to 38.6 million units, while desktop sales slipped 1.3% to 38.5 million. Hewlett-Packard remains the top PC supplier, while Dell and Acer claim second and third place respectively.

"The big news for the third quarter was undoubtedly the performance of Taiwan's Acer," said an analyst with the market research firm iSuppli, who noted that Acer sold 3 million more notebooks in the third quarter than the second quarter—most of them Netbooks. Overall computer sales for 2008 have also been higher than iSuppli’s expectations, prompting the firm to up its sales growth forecast for 2008 from 12.5% to 13%. (More laptops stories.)