Notebook specialist Toshiba is fast losing ground to its three major rivals, dropping to number four spot in the worldwide notebook market for the first time behind PC vendor Acer.

Acer unseated Toshiba as the world's No 3 notebook brand in Q4 2005, with 66.7% year-on-year growth - highest among the top-five notebook vendors, according to preliminary data from Gartner Dataquest.  Acer notebooks ranked No 1 in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), and No 3 in Asia Pacific with 117.1% growth, the highest among the top-ten vendors.

In comparison, in a quarter of exceptional of notebook growth globally, Toshiba performed dismally compared to its main rivals, with a growth rate of just half of second placed Hewlett-Packard, less than half of that of top vendor Dell and less than one third of Acer's growth rate. 
 
Q4 2005 Worldwide notebook shipment 

                                       Market Share  Growth (YoY)
1 Dell                                       17.1%   50.9%
2 Hewlett-Packard                16.5%   41.8%
3 Acer                                      12.2%   66.7%
4 Toshiba                               10.5%   20.9%
5 Fujitsu Siemens                  8.1%   18.0%
 
Source: Gartner Q4 2005 preliminary data