Who makes your laptop
Dell shipped more PCs than anyone on earth in 2005. Lenovo was third - and only because it had just bought IBM's.
This is a count of machines, not money. IDC and Gartner both rank PC makers by units shipped - not revenue, not market value - and they agree on the order in both years.
2005: Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Fujitsu. 2025: Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, Asus.
Which is why Apple sits fourth here and is worth many times the other four put together. Selling the most is not being the biggest.
Dell shipped 36.8m machines in 2005, about 17% of the market, the biggest in the world. Today it is third. Lenovo is first at roughly 73.5m units, about 27%. HP is the only one that did not move.
The climb is the part worth knowing. Lenovo was third in 2005 for one reason: it closed its $1.75bn purchase of IBM's PC division on 1 May that year, taking the ThinkPad with it. In November 2017 it agreed to buy 51% of Fujitsu Client Computing - the business ranked fifth on this chart. Fujitsu kept 44%, the Development Bank of Japan 5%.
So number one holds a controlling stake in number five. Lenovo largely assembled first place out of other people's PC divisions.
Two notes. Acer has not disappeared - it is sixth, passed by Asus. And the firms count slightly different machines: IDC put 2025 at 284.7m units, Gartner over 270m.
