New Gartner data breaking down European computer market share has shown poor results for almost every computer builder outside of Apple. Continent-wide, both market leader HP as well as Acer, Dell, and Toshiba were all dropping market share. Only ASUS (up 1.5 points) increased share based solely on its own merits among the top five; Lenovo's gain was inflated by its acquiring Medion last June.
Former Acer chief Gianfranco Lanci has found a new home at Lenovo, where he will act as a consultant. After six months on the sidelines, Lenovo confirmed that Lanci had been hired by the company. Lanci is to advise the Chinese-based company on different ways in which it can bolster its retail operations, particularly the integration of Lenovo’s latest acquisition, Medion.
Lenovo chairman Liu Chuanzhi in comments bragged of his company's position in the PC space and expected to take the second place spot away from Dell this year. Lenovo's current pace was quick enough that it would happen in the last few months of the year. CEO Yuanqing Yang pointed to an existing quick pace but also took a dig at HP's possible exit from PCs, suggesting that it wasn't an iPad effect but weak will and poor performance at HP that was leading it to wither in the face of smartphones and the iPad.
Medion, which was acquired by Lenovo earlier this year, showed off two new Android devices at the IFA show in Berlin. The tablet is called the Lifetab P9514 and sports a 10-inch touchscreen along with the common 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 on most tablets. It runs on Android 3.2 from the start and will come only in either 16GB or 32GB capacities.
Apple was the only major computer manufacturer in Western Europe to keep growing this past spring, Gartner uncovered in a continent-wide breakdown on Wednesday. Apple only grew shipments by half a percent to hit seven percent of the market, but all Windows-based PC makers dropped in the same period. HP and Dell gained share but still saw their shipments drop by 6.1 percent and 12.7 percent each, while Acer faced a disastrous 44.6 percent after its 'abnormalities' in overstock forced it to ship 44.6 percent fewer PCs and drop to second place at 16.7 percent.
Lenovo on Wednesday made a grab for market share on Wednesday by acquiring Medion. The buyout of the German PC builder was intended expressly to gain influence in Western Europe and should help it leapfrog multiple companies, including Apple. Its takeover would give it 14 percent of Germany and 7.5 percent of Europe, according to its own estimates and IDC data.
Apple has made significant strides in Western Europe by gaining a fifth place spot in France during the fall, analysts at Gartner said on Monday. The company pushed out Toshiba after a 43.5 percent jump in its Mac shipments year-over-year to 182,000 for the quarter, or enough to claim 5.5 percent of the country's market. It was the fastest-growing major computer builder in the country where ASUS grew 27.6 percent to claim 10.2 percent of France's PC business.
MID and netbook maker Medion on Friday revealed its Touch X9613 all-in-one PC, the company's first. Billed as a home entertainment PC, the X9613's 24-inch touchscreen display supports multitouch inputs and sports 1920x1080 resolution. The PC will ship with NVIDIA's GeForce GT240M graphics card with 1GB of dedicated memory. Processing is handled by Intel's 2GHz Core 2 Quad CPU, and there is 4GB of RAM onboard.
MEDION on Monday announced it is introducing three new personal navigation devices that use a fingerprint scanner for security and theft-deterrence. MEDION enlisted the help of AuthenTec to integrate its fingerprint sensors into the devices, which include the GoPal P5235, GoPal P5435 and GoPal X5535. Users can save up to five fingerprints using the small AES1510 fingerprint sensor used in millions of cellphones, which then allows them to log in and use each device. The feature ensures only authorized users can access the three devices, which are useless if stolen.
German computer and consumer electronics maker Medion is set to unveil an ASUS EEE PC 900 competitor with its Akoya E1210, according to French sources. The 10-inch mini laptop is believed to utilize Intel's small Atom processor running at 1.6GHz or higher and at least 1GB of RAM. Unlike the Eee PC, there will not be an SSD drive offered, with Medion opting to use an iPod-like 1.8-inch HDD of unknown capacity.
In its attempt to stand out from the typical GPS crowd, Medion today updated its GoPal GPS mapping units with the P4425. The 4.3-inch widescreen navigator is the first to include a biometric fingerprint reader built into the device for security. Users just swipe their finger to gain access, Medion boasts. The measure lets drivers leave the device in a car for brief intervals knowing that a thief could not make use of the system. It also prevents having to enter a text password using a more cumbersome touchscreen keyboard.
