What Downturn? Worldwide PC Shipments Soar in Q4.

The final quarter of 2009 was the year’s strongest for PC sales. According to IDC, the number of PCs shipped in the October-December quarter rose 15.2 percent from a year earlier.

And according to Gartner, PC sales rose 22.1 percent–the strongest quarter-over-quarter growth the market has experienced in the last seven years.

“These preliminary results indicate the recovery of the PC market on a global level,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner (IT). “The U.S. and Asia/Pacific had already shown positive indicators last quarter, however the fourth quarter 2009 results were more concrete evidence of the recovery.”

Signs that the econalypse is coming to an end seem to have loosed the pent-up demand that’s been building over the past year, and most major PC manufacturers benefited–particularly Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), which, with either 20.7 percent (IDC) or 19.8 percent (Gartner) market share worldwide, remains the PC leader.

Also faring particularly well in Q4: Acer, whose strong netbook sales pushed it to second place behind HP, with market share of 13.4 percent according to IDC, and 13.5 percent according to Gartner.

And the rest of the industry’s big players? Dell (DELL) ranked third with a worldwide market share that fell to 12.5 percent from 13.6 percent a year ago, according to IDC, or to 11.5 percent from 13.3 percent, according to Gartner.

Lenovo and Toshiba ranked fourth and fifth, according to both firms, which put the former’s market share at around nine percent and the latter’s well above five percent.

Here are the summary tables; click to enlarge: