5 years ago... Dell becomes number one UK PC seller

19.08.1999: Dell takes the number one spot in the UK PC market for the first time, according to IDC, having supplanted Compaq. It also becomes the number two PC seller in Western Europe, with market share of 10.6 per cent.

The news comes as part of the company's second quarter earnings report, in which it also announces it turned over more than $30m per day in online sales, about double the amount of all other top 20 web retailers put together.

European online sales for the quarter totalled $5m per day, with one-third of that coming from the UK. Overall the company saw revenues of $6.1bn with net income of $507m.

Martyn Lambert, marketing director at Dell Computer UK & Ireland, said: "We're doing about a million pounds a day in the UK and Ireland on the internet. We're going to drive that to greater than 45 per cent over the next three or four months."

19.08.2004: That was only the beginning of Dell's good times. It's currently the number one PC seller worldwide, according to both Gartner and IDC, with an 18.3 per cent market share. Hewlett-Packard (which bought Compaq) is in second place with 15.7 per cent.

Sales have gone nowhere but up, with Dell posting revenue of $11.7bn and a profit of $799m, a company record, for its second fiscal quarter, which ended on 30 July, 2004.

The quarter went particularly well in its Europe, Middle East and Africa region, where total product shipments increased by 30 per cent, as opposed to about 20 per cent in the US.