PC market hits the ropes, but Lenovo's still standing

Undisputed heavyweight PC champ Lenovo continues to buck the industry trend by positing double-digit gains in sales and profits as rivals struggle to peel themselves off the canvas.

The Chinese dragon – which punched HP off the top spot in calendar Q2 – reported a 10 per cent year-on-year spike in sales to $8.8bn for its fiscal Q1 ended 30 June, and an 18 per cent bounce in net profit to $170m.

"In a tough PC market, Lenovo became the clear number one for the first time and continues to improve profitability," said CEO Yang Yuanqing.

The rumble with HP saw Lenovo become the biggest PC maker on the planet in Q3 last year, if you believe Gartner data that is, but HP didn't and pointed to IDC which had Lenovo still at Number 2.

Both analysts concurred that Lenovo took the crown in Q2 this year though, as its shipments declined less, at 0.6 per cent, than those of all of its rivals. HP's shipments slumped by 4.6 per cent.

But there were just a few hundred thousands units dividing the pair and HP is expected to climb on top again before the year is out.

The Asian titan shipped 12.6 million PCs in the quarter but was quick to point out that it had actually flogged more smartphones and tablets combined than notebooks and desktops.

"We are rapidly transforming into a PC Plus company," claimed Yuanqing.

Lenovo has became the fourth-highest shifter of tablets and smartphones worldwide, according to IDC. Not bad for a company that not too long ago appeared to be going into meltdown, and failed to live up to those early expectations in the channel as a strong alternative to US vendors.

The laptop arm turned over $4.5bn in the quarter, up 4.7 per cent, desktop shipments were flat in units but fell 2.8 per cent in revenues to $2.5bn. Smartphones and tablets hit $1.2bn, growth of 105 per cent. The rest of the revenues were made up by

In terms of geography, China accounted for $3.7bn of sales, up 5.6 per cent, Asia Pacific was $1.3bn, down 8.1 per cent, EMEA sales of $1.86bn represented growth of $284m, and the Americas was up 29 per cent to $1.9bn. ®