Chinese PC maker Lenovo – now the world’s No. 2 PC maker after last month passing Acer and Dell and lagging behind only Hewlett-Packard – has reported that its profit in the first half of the year nearly doubled following strong emerging market sales.
Chinese PC maker Lenovo – now the world’s No. 2 PC maker after last month passing Acer and Dell (CDN, Oct. 14) and lagging behind only Hewlett-Packard – has reported that its profit in the first half of the year nearly doubled following strong emerging market sales.
The news comes as Lenovo is believed to be preparing to launch a thin-and-light ultrabook model – most likely its 13.3-inch IdeaPad U300s, pictured – on the Australian market in the run-up to Christmas, following the July release of its IdeaPad K1 Android-powered tablet.
The U300s, already available in the US market, sports a Sandy Bridge Core i7 processor, a solid-state drive and 4GB of RAM. Lenovo claims a 20-second boot time and under five second resume times.
Meanwhile, at a time when most PC makers have been stumbling, Lenovo yesterday reported net profit for the first half of its financial year was US$252 million, up 92 percent from $131 million a year earlier. Sales for its second fiscal quarter increased 35.2 percent year-over-year to a record $7.8 billion.
Lenovo began its global expansion with the purchase of IBM’s PC business. This year, riding on the back of its recent purchase of NEC’s PC business and acquisition of the German Medion outfit, Lenovo has achieved record worldwide market share of 13.5 percent – though it comes fifth in the Australian market with 7.4 percent.
In China it is No. 1 by a long way.
In its second financial quarter, the Chinese PC maker posted record quarterly sales of US$7.8 billion. The company is also cashed up with $4 billion in the bank.
During the quarter, Lenovo’s worldwide PC shipments grew 35.8 percent year-over-year; seven times the PC industry growth rate of 5 percent.
– In Australia Lenovo has also been making gains. “Lenovo’s performance this quarter was outstanding. We have strengthened our market position to become the world’s second-largest PC vendor,” Chris Kelly, SMB and consumer director at Lenovo A/NZ told CDN.
“Since the launch of the tablet in July, we’ve had an exceptional response from the local market, both in media reviews and channel feedback. We’re extremely optimistic about continuing to accomplish strong results in the extended PC categories.”
Gartner analyst Eileen He told CDN the growth of Lenovo reflects the merger with NEC’s PC business earlier this year.
“Integration of the PC business with NEC has taken some time but it is the reason for such a big result and has picked it up. The company has had to put a great deal of effort in balancing growth across different regions,” she said.
