In brief: PC makers have a reason to cheer this week as the latest quarterly report from Canalys shows strong growth for the second successive quarter. The industry analyst said total PC shipments (including tablets) reached 124.5 million units in the third quarter. That's up 23 percent compared to the same period a year ago.

On an individual vendor basis, Lenovo led the way with 23.5 million units shipped, followed closely by Apple at 22.1 million. HP, Dell and Samsung rounded out the top five with shipments of 18.7 million units, 12 million units and 10 million units, respectively.

Looking at individual product categories, we find that Chromebooks saw the biggest shipment growth at 122 percent. Shipments of detachables increased by 88 percent while ultra slim notebook shipments were up 57 percent in the quarter. In fact, all categories saw growth, save for two: desktop workstations and tower / small desktops, which saw dips of 27 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

Pure growth aside, it was also a great quarter for tablets. Apple maintained pole position, shipping 15.2 million units during the three-month period, an increase of 47 percent year over year. Samsung placed second with a little over nine million tablet shipments, up 79.8 percent year over year.

In total, manufacturers shipped 44.3 million tablets during the quarter, good for a 43.3 percent year-over-year increase.

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