Acer has become Europe’s No.1 notebook vendor after it outperformed HP and Dell in the second quarter of the year, according data released recently by International Data Corporation (IDC), reports DigiTimes web-site.

For the second quarter 2004 Acer shipped nearly 499 thousand of notebooks in Europe, commanding 16.7% market share. The company managed to increase sales of portable computers in the European Union by about 67.2% year-on-year, by contrast, former Europe’s biggest notebook seller, HP, sold 9.7% less notebooks in Q2 2004 compared to Q2 2003, or about 458 thousand. Now HP is ranked second with 15.3% of the market.

Another high-climber in Europe’s notebook business is Fujitsu Siemens, which increased its presence to 8.4% from 5.5% in Q2 2003. Dell also managed to make its market share uptick 0.6% from 10.9% in Q2 2003 to 11.5% in Q2 2004, while Toshiba lost 0.1% of the market and now commands 9% of the EU’s notebook shipments.

IDC attributes Acer’s unprecedented growth to the company’s success in selling low-cost portable computers in Europe.

Total notebook shipments in Europe grew 25.7% year-on-year in Q2 2004.