On Tuesday, research group iSuppli informed that notebook computer shipments throughout the world had outnumbered those of desktops for the very first time, within this year’s third quarter.

Compared to 2007’s third quarter, notebook shipments went up by 40 percent, totaling 38.6 million units, whereas desktop ones decreased by 1.3 percent to 38.5 million.

On the whole, during the aforementioned time-frame, PC shipments increased by 15.4 percent, reaching approximately 79 million units.

According to iSuppli, Acer Incorporated shipped 3 million more notebooks within this year’s third quarter than during the same period in 2007, the company now ranking as the third largest Personal Computer one in terms of market share, with a grip over 12.2 percent, which puts it less than two percentage points behind rival Dell Incorporated.

Moreover, these above-mentioned numbers translate as an increase by 45 percent from second quarter shipments and a 79 percent one from 2007’s Q3.

As for the market leader, Hewlett-Packard Company is still number 1, with 14.9 million units shipped (3.9 million more than Dell) and 18.8 percent market share in its hands.

Apple Incorporated, ranking seventh where overall shipments are concerned, has lost half a point of market share from 2008’s second quarter, registering 3.2 percent at this moment.

The iSuppli research group has raised its forecasts with regards to the unit growth for 2008, predicting a 13 percent growth from a previously announced 12.5 percent, while for 2009, the expectations translate as a 4.3 percent unit growth.