Western European PC shipments in the first quarter of 2008 hit 15.2m, up 14.1 per cent on the same period in 2007.

Currency exchange rates between the pound and dollar helped vendors drive down average selling prices in the first quarter of 2008.

The threat of economic downturn remains, but the PC market is in a good position, said Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner.

“The decline in pricing helped outweigh any negative influences driven by economic concerns in the first quarter of 2008,” he said.

“While the PC market is not immune to an economic downturn continued strong mobile penetration helps to sustain robust growth.”

UK PC shipments in the first quarter increased 11.2 per cent compared with the same period last year, totalling 3.1 million units, while growth in UK mobile PCs hit 40 per cent in the first quarter.

Mobile PC sales made up over 60 per cent of the total PC shipments and nearly 70 per cent of consumer PCs. The desktop market was down more than 15 per cent year-on-year in both the consumer and professional markets.

Dell and HP were the big winners with respectively 20 per cent (779,000 units) and 27 per cent (715,000 units) growth. Acer shipments plummeted 16 per cent (360,000 units) while Fujitsu Siemens Computers' 168,000 units represented a 13 per cent fall on the same quarter last year. Toshiba shipments grew 26 per cent to 254,000 units.

UK market share leader is Dell with 24.6 per cent followed by HP at 22.6 per cent, Acer 11 per cent, Toshiba eight per cent and Fujitsu Siemens five per cent.

In France Taiwanese maker Asus entered the top five for the first time and in Germany poor consumer sales were offset by business demand.