Could Acer take the #1 spot for laptop shipments one day? They are definitely climbing, and according to some analysts they might beat out Toshiba this year. With estimates of over 8 million laptops shipped for this year, it puts them ahead of Toshiba by a very slight margin, giving them a chance to hit the #3 spot this year. HP and Dell take the top two spots.

Statistics compiled by Gartner Dataquest show that Acer's worldwide notebook sales totaled 3.95 million units in the first half, compared to Toshiba's 4.11 million. Based on Acer's annual shipment ratio of 4:6 between the former and latter halves of the year, Acer is expected to sell 5.5-6 million notebooks in the second half of 2006, sources at Taiwan notebook makers said. The Taiwan vendor should manage to meet its full-year shipment goal of 10 million units, this year, according to the sources.
While I don't really care how many notebooks the vendors sell, it's very encouraging to see a company like Acer taking on the really huge players. If we have 4 top vendors instead of 2, it's more chance for competition and better choice for everyone.