Worldwide personal computer shipments in the second quarter took a major plunge of 3 percent, according to worldwide PC tracker on Wednesday.

It fell down 3.1 percent globally to 66.2 million in its desktops and portable PC’s, excluding x86 servers, according to IDC.

Hewlett-Packard Co. remained the world’s largest PC maker with 19.8% market share, followed by Dell Inc. of 13.7% and Acer of 12.7%, which also had the biggest percentage gains, and both worldwide and in the United States of 23.7 percent and 51 percent increase respectively drove by its netbook.

In the U.S., PC market declined 3 percent to 15.8 million year over year in the second quarter. Dell regained the top position of 26.3 percent, while HP took 26 percent behind and Apple has 7.6 percent, according to IDC data.

The market’s focus on lower-price PCs and Mini Notebooks is likely to drag the value of the market to lower levels,” IDC analyst Bob O’Donnell, vice president, Clients and Displays said.

“These results are a very positive indicator for the second half of the year,” said Loren Loverde, program director for IDC’s Tracker Program. ”We are seeing continued demand from consumers and limited impact from supply chain factors such as inventory balancing.

However, analyst from Gartner research posted better than expected Worldwide PC shipment decline of 5 percent to 68.1 million in the second quarter of 2009 from its previous forecast of decline 9.8 percent in June.

Dell