by , 7:15 PM EDT, July 19th, 2006

On the heels of the news that Apple's computer sales were up 12% over the year-ago period, IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker showed on Wednesday that the company's market share in the U.S. reached 4.8% last quarter, up from 4.4% a year ago. That was good for fourth on the list of top vendors, although Apple failed to crack the top five worldwide.

Dell led the way in the U.S., growing shipments by 6.4% but losing market share, from 34.3% in the second quarter of 2005 to 34.2% last quarter. HP was number two, with 20.1% of the market this year, compared to 18.6% in 2Q05, Gateway was third with 6.5% versus 6%, and Lenovo was fifth with 4% versus 4.1%.

Overall, nearly 16 million computers were shipped last quarter in the United States, up 6.7% from the year-ago period.

Worldwide, Dell was also number one, growing its market share from 19% a year ago to 19.2% this year. HP was number two at 15.9% versus 15.4%, Lenovo was third with 7.7% versus 7.5%, Acer was fourth with 5.4% versus 4.3%, and Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens was firth with 3.4% versus 3.7%. Apple was part of the "Others" category, which fell from 50.1% last year to 48.5% this year.

Worldwide, all vendors were up 9.7% compared to last year, shipping 52.084 million computers compared to 47.477 million in the second quarter of 2005.