Netbook shipments worldwide are expected to have jumped by 103 percent this year compared to last year, although the fast growth rate could slow down in 2010 as prices for portable PCs fall, research firm DisplaySearch said on Tuesday.

Lifted by fast-growing notebook shipments, Taiwan's Acer Inc. grabbed the No. 2 spot in the global PC market for the first time over Dell Inc., according to iSuppli Corp.

Intel expanded its chip shipment lead over Advanced Micro Devices during the third quarter as the rivals battle for larger market share, according to a survey released by Mercury Research on Tuesday.

Expecting the recession to worsen, IDC updated its PC shipment forecast on Thursday, saying shipments would decline further in 2009 before showing a gradual recovery in 2010.

The economic slowdown in the U.S. has led Gartner to revise its 2008 worldwide PC shipments forecast downward slightly but the analyst firm is still predicting a strong year, particularly in the mobility space.

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday said it has delayed volume shipments of its quad-core Opteron processors as it fine-tunes the chip.

Strong sales of digital consumer electronic gadgets helped Sony Corp. achieve record sales and higher net profit in the financial year just-ended but shipments of PlayStation 3 consoles missed their target, the company said Wednesday.

Sony Corp. came out on top of the LCD (liquid crystal display) TV market in 2006 for the first time, according to figures published by DisplaySearch on Tuesday.

Shipments of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s PlayStation 3 console hit 1 million units in Japan on Tuesday, the company said. That's just over two weeks behind Sony's original launch plan, which envisaged hitting the million mark before the end of 2006.

Motorola Inc. Tuesday said its sales in the first quarter soared to a record high as it shipped more mobile phones and set-top boxes during a three month period than ever before.

IDC reported on Thursday that high-end devices helped contribute to the shipment of 825 million mobile phones in 2005.

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday reported the highest quarterly revenue in company history for its fiscal 2006 second quarter on the strength of its Windows OS and a series of highly anticipated product releases. Still, the company fell slightly shy of analysts' revenue expectations.