• July 18, 2000

For the first time, Gateway and Compaq have taken the lead from Packard Bell as the most owned brand of Windows PCs at home in the United States, each with 10.3% share of U.S. home Windows PC users compared to Packard Bell's 9.2% of share, according to Media Metrix. Also of note, Dell and Hewlett-Packard have the highest growth rates in ownership from 1997 to 2000 at 551% and 430%, respectively.

In a separate survey, Media Metrix research shows a decline in at-home Macintosh ownership from a high of 4.9 million households in January 1996 down to 3.8 million households in January 2000 for an average annual decrease of around 5%. Household penetration of PCs overall has grown from 35.4 million households in 1996 to 55.5 million households in 2000.