(Telecompaper) Worldwide PC shipments declined by 1.7 percent year-on-year to around 78.5 million units in the third quarter, according to preliminary data from IDC. The drop in sales is a sizeable improvement over the projected decline of 4.1 percent thanks above all to strong commercial PC sales and returning consumer interest. The top three vendors Lenovo, HP and Dell continued to show solid year-on-year growth, with shipments of entry systems, including Chromebooks, again injecting an important source of volume and improved consumer demand. Lenovo's PC sales rose 11.2 percent to 15.7 million units (20.0% market share), HP increased 5.1 percent to 14.7 million (18.8% share) and Dell was up 9.7 percent to 10.4 million (13.3% share). Acer remained in fourth position with 6.6 million units sold (8.4 percent market share), mostly due to the success of its Chromebooks and entry-level notebooks, while Apple moved into fifth position on a worldwide basis with just short of 5.0 million units sold, overtaking Asus.