Digitimes Research estimates that worldwide top-5 notebook brand vendors and top-3 ODMs both enjoyed 31% on-month shipment growth in May because of preparations for new notebook models and growing demand for Chromebooks.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) was the largest vendor in May in terms of shipments. Lenovo ranked second due to its weak performance in emerging markets; however, the China-based vendor's shipments were only 500,000 units short of HP's. Dell dropped from number one in April to number three in May, but its shipments in the month were the highest monthly performance of the year so far. Asustek Computer and Acer both enjoyed better performances in May than in April, Digitimes Research's figures showed.

With HP's increased shipments and Dell's stable orders, the top-3 notebook ODMs together achieved on-month growth of 31% in May and the volume was flat from May a year ago. This is the first time the top-3 ODMs were able to escape from an on-year decline in seven months.

With orders from HP and Lenovo increasing around 600,000 units from April, the second-largest ODM Compal Electronics achieved an on-month shipment growth of 33% in May, performing the best among the top-3 ODMs. Quanta Computer also achieved an on-month shipment growth of 31% because of orders for Chromebooks from several brand vendors.