HP had trailed its rival since the end of 2003, but recently saw strong growth in all its major global markets, IDC and Gartner agreed. While Dell also had solid growth abroad, in the US it saw volume drop by 7% year-on-year with double-digit declines in desktops, according to IDC.

Gartner also reckons Dell’s shipment growth rates were below the industry averages in the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

HP continues to take better advantage of the faster growth segments such as the consumer market, said Garter principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa, in a statement. Dell felt the effects of the weak sales in the US market, and it gave up some ground.

For sure, it had been a tough quarter for Dell, which made headlines around the world when it announced a 4.1 million-unit recall of notebooks that might potentially overheat and burst into flames due to defective batteries from Sony.

However, Dell’s third-quarter results cannot be attributed to the bad publicity over its battery recall alone, said IDC analyst Loren Loverde, in a statement.

Dell will likely be very aggressive in the fourth quarter, and we will see how similar battery recalls affect other vendors, Loverde said. These factors may cut into fourth quarter growth, but overall we don’t see a broad threat to fourth quarter growth.

HP was the only major PC maker that has not yet had a battery recall this year.

Gartner also noted, Offerings of AMD-based systems aimed at consumers helped HP’s performance in the home market. Dell only recently moved away from its Intel-only strategy and in August announced it would, for the first time, begin shipping computers powered by AMD chips.

HP shipped 9.831 million PCs globally compared to 9.803 million shipped by Dell, according to IDC. Even though Dell lost a lot of market share in the US, it still was the leading computer supplier in the country, with 31% share versus HP’s 22%, IDC said.

Gartner said HP grabbed a 16.3% total worldwide market share during the quarter, while Dell held on to just 16.1%. Gartner also counted Dell as the biggest PC shipper in the US, with 32.1% versus HP’s 23%.

Both research firms agreed that even though Dell ruled in the US, it lost market share in the country last quarter while HP gained.