Surging iPad shipments propelled Apple to a 17.2% share of worldwide mobile pesonal computer shipments in the fourth quarter of 2010 (Q4’10), placing Apple at the top of the DisplaySearch market share ranking.

According to preliminary results from the "DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report," Apple shipped more than 10.2 million notebook and tablet computers combined, nearly a million more units than HP in Q4’10. While Apple’s iPad is benefiting from a first-mover advantage, particularly in mature markets, its notebook computer shipment growth rate continues to exceed the industry average.

“While we anticipate increased competition in the tablet PC market later this year with the introduction of Android Honeycomb-based tablets, Apple’s iPad business is complementing a notebook line whose shipments widely exceed the industry average growth rate,” says Richard Shim, Senior Analyst at the DisplaySearch (http://www.displaysearch.com) research group. “Apple is currently benefiting from significant and comprehensive growth from both sectors of the mobile PC spectrum, notebooks and tablet PCs. Cannibalization seems limited at this point.”

Among the top five brands in the mobile computer market, Toshiba was the only other company to exhibit year-over-year shipment growth. Toshiba’s shipments increased 15% year-over-year, to over 5.1 million units in Q4’10, as it maintained its number five position in market share. HP, Acer Group (including Founder shipments), and Dell took the number two, three and four positions, respectively. The top five brands accounted for 65.4% of the total mobile computer market.