The second and third quarter of 2008 saw an interesting turn of events on the eBay USA platform. IBM/Lenovo laptop sales have been outperforming Dell and Compaq- both of which have seen declining demand on eBay over the past year. In contrast, IBM/Lenovo has experienced a year over year increase in demand for its products- both in the global market and the eBay USA market.

Recently, IBM reported 12% profit increase for 2008 although its quarter over quarter revenue has decreased. In the real world, IBM has been able to attract demand in other areas such as contracts and consulting.

In the world’s largest virtual marketplace, new laptop sales for both IBM and HP reflect the global increase in demand during the year of 2008. For IBM/Lenovo, the 2007/2008 year over year rise in revenue on eBay for the second quarter is 52.88%. The growth rate slowed down sharply to 5.18% for the third quarter and 1% for the fourth quarter.