On Tuesday, Gartner and IDC, two major IT research firms, brought forward the results of a recently carried out study; according to the newly compiled data, it seems that while global economy is going down, PC sales are on a steady ascending path.

According to Gartner, in the second quarter of 2008, PC sales recorded a 16 percent increase, with a grand total of 71.9 million units sold worldwide. Last year’s second quarter had sales of only 62 million units. IDC numbers came in quite close to this estimation; it reached a 15.3% increase, with 70.6 million units.

Mika Kitagawa, a Gartner analyst, said that although unit sales have been going up, revenues haven’t. This was explained through the lower average selling prices (ASPs) companies have used.

When taking a look at the active names on the market, Apple came out as doing very well. As Gartner calculated, the company recorded a 38.1% increase of its US sales (IDC said 31,7%). Apple thus reached third place, following Dell and HP. Its market share jumped from 6.4% to 8.5%. While Dell was found to be dominating the US market, HP is currently the world’s leader. Despite the significant unit sales increase, Apple failed to reach the global top five; perhaps it will manage to get there this year.

Acer however hasn’t had such a good year; the number of shipped units dropped by 20.8%. This was largely attributed to the recent acquirement of Gateway and Packard Bell. According to Mika Kitagawa, sales always go down when a PC company acquires another. IDC said Apple and Acer currently have the same US market share of 7.8%.

Unit sales have gone up all over the world: in Asia/Pacific by 18.1%, in Latin America by 23.2% and in Japan by 8.2%.