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"With 43 percent of its total sales in Mexico, mostly in the professional segment, Dell clearly came ahead in the Latin America PC market," said Luis Anavitarte, vice president and research director for Gartner Dataquest's Latin America group. "Despite IBM's good regional PC performance, Dell has been able to successfully compete with IBM and HP on a regional scale, also leveraging from its strong worldwide position and the growing Latin American acceptance for the direct sales model."

While the overall PC industry declined in 2002, notebook sales actually increased in Latin America. Notebook shipments grew 3 percent in 2002.

The market was driven by lower price points and its growing popularity in the consumer segment.

Brazil continues to be the No. 1 country for PC shipments in the region, as it had 44.2 percent of the market, but shipments in the country declined 5.3 percent in 2002.

PC shipments in Mexico, the No. 2 country, increased 1.5 percent. Mexico's regional share was 26.9 percent.

Venezuela and Argentina experienced the strongest decline in shipments, as units declined 26.4 percent and 80.2 percent, respectively.

In a positive sign that governments may become large purchasers of PCs in the region, a partial shipment from HP as part of a large PC and Internet project with Empresas Publicas de Medellin in Colombia, helped PC shipments in Colombia grow 21.8 percent in 2002, making it the No. 3 country for PC shipments in the region.

"2002 was a difficult year for the PC industry in Latin America. It included the economic collapse of Argentina, monetary instability and political uncertainties in Brazil, a growing political and economic crisis in Venezuela and an unstable international scenario," Anavitartesaid. "Mexico was instrumental in keeping the region in only a moderate decline."

This information is produced by Gartner Dataquest's Computing Platforms Latin America group.

The group provides research on key aspects of the dynamic PC, server and printer hardware markets in Latin America.

The focus is on regional and country issues in the top eight Latin American markets and the Rest of Latin America (ROLA) category, where Central American and Caribbean countries are grouped.