With a 13.5% global share, the Chinese PC maker Lenovo became the world's second largest PC maker for the first time, exceeding Dell, according to the PC shipment report for the third quarter of 2011 released by the market research firm Gartner.

The report stated that during the third quarter of 2011, the world's total PC shipment reached 91.787 million units, an increase of 3.2% compared with the 88.95 million units in the same period of 2010. In addition, promoted by the large demand increase in the Chinese market, the total PC shipment in Asia Pacific increased by 6% year-on-year to 31.8 million units during the reporting period.

The report also said that in the third quarter of 2011, HP shipped 16.231 million PCs, accounting for 17.7% of the global shipment; Lenovo shipped 12.352 million units, accounting for 13.5%; and Dell shipped 10.676 million units, accounting for 11.6%. Lenovo exceeded Dell for the first time and became the world's second largest PC maker. Gartner said Lenovo's achievement was mainly attributed to its partnership with Japan's NEC for joint sales of notebooks as well as its active marketing measures.

Statistics previously released by another market research firm, IDC, showed that in July 2011, Lenovo exceeded Acer and became the world's third largest PC maker with the global market share of 12.2%.

The report published by Gartner pointed out that the growth of the global PC sales is slowing down, because more consumers turn to smartphones and tablet computers.