Higher-than-expected shipment in India and China has helped consumer PC sales in Asia Pacific region grow 8% in July-September 2014 quarter to 26.6 mn units, research firm IDC said.

According to IDC's preliminary results, APAC (excluding Japan) PC market increased 8% from April-June 2014 quarter, but declined 5% year-on-year, coming in higher than its initial forecasts.

"In India, positive consumer sentiment after the elections resulted in high retail walk-ins; while vendors in China pushed volumes in spite of a poor sell-out," IDC said in a statement.

ASEAN was a mixed bag with Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand experiencing double-digit annual declines, while other countries like Vietnam did well, it added.

"In recent quarters, we have seen Microsoft add a lot to the entry-level segment by launching the Windows 8.1 with Bing program. This has helped consumers buy licensed OS PC in many countries in the region," IDC Asia Pacific research manager for Client Devices Research Handoko Andi said.

Lenovo retained the top spot with high sequential double-digit growth in most of the markets in the region including China and India. It had a 27.4% share in the reported quarter.

Dell ranked second, backed by strong entry-level growth in some key emerging markets like India and Vietnam, with 11.1% share.

HP saw its share shrinking to 10.1% in Q3 2014 from 10.3% in April-June 2014 quarter and 11.5% in Q3 last year.

ASUS and Acer, with 7.7% share of the market each, had good runs in markets like Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Taiwan due to their entry-level notebooks.