NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Worldwide personal computer demand continued to climb at a robust pace, according to a report released Monday.

Worldwide growth in PC sales in the third quarter of 2004 reached nearly 12 percent, driven in large part by strong commercial demand, according to tech research firm IDC.

That commercial demand helped offset soft performance in the consumer sector. Nonetheless, the fourth-quarter is traditionally the strongest for consumer-driven sales and, if commercial demand remains solid, the two could combine for a particularly bright final quarter, according to Loren Loverde, IDC's director of PC research.

Worldwide, Dell increased its growth in the third quarter 2004 over the same quarter last year by 20.7 percent, the largest growth increase among the top five PC makers.

Dell captured 18.2 percent of the worldwide market, followed by HP at 16.2 percent, IBM at 6.0 percent, Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens at 3.9 percent and Toshiba with 3.6 percent. The remaining 52.1 percent went to other PC makers.

HP registered the smallest increase in growth, with a 9.1 percent growth rate worldwide. Domestically HP did even worse, growing only 1.5 percent.

"HP could have done better," said Loverde. "If you look at their growth in the U.S., it was particularly slow."

Dell was again the leader in the domestic market, capturing 32.8 percent of market share, followed by HP with 20.4 percent, Gateway with 5.4 percent, IBM with 5.3 percent and Toshiba with 3.7 percent.

Gateway, now merged with eMachines, saw a 12.4 percent drop in growth compared to the two companies sales the year before.

Loverde, however, said the drop was mostly due to the disruptions caused by the merger and said the Gateway/eMachines model is still competitive.

"It's not completely surprising," he said. "EMachines was doing quite well. I think there is good potential there."