Per a new report from market research firm DisplaySearch, Apple's notebook shipment grew 61% from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008, representing a growth from almost 900,000 to just over 1.4 million.

According to Macworld UK, this puts Apple in seventh place in overall notebook market share at 4.6% while HP stands at 20.8%, Dell stands at 15.1%, Acer stands at 14.6%, Toshiba stands at 9.3%, Lenovo stands at 7.5% and Fujitsu-Siemens stands at 5.2%. Asus and Sony rounded out the list with 4.3% and 4.2% market shares, respectively.

Of note is the growth factor, which at 61% is much higher than the 20-40% growth rate posted by the other companies with Sony posting a meager 3% growth rate for the period.

In all 31.1 million notebooks were shipped in the first quarter of 2008. DisplaySearch is forecasting shipments of 135 million units for the year.

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