Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2004/06/09/amd_lenovo_deal/

AMD bags Chinese giant

Lenovo embraces Athlon

By Ashlee Vance

Posted in Personal Tech, 9th June 2004 23:21 GMT

AMD has worked its way into the heart of the Chinese computer market, announcing a deal today with leading manufacturer Lenovo.

Lenovo is set to roll out the Feng Xing V series of consumer PCs running on AMD's Athlon 64 and Athlon XP processors. AMD, for the first time, joins Intel as a supplier for Lenovo - the largest PC maker in China. Lenovo is actually the Western brand of China's Legend Group. The deal should help AMD make way in a growing PC market. Last year, China surpassed Japan as the second leading PC buyer with 13m units shipped. Around 90m people in China surf the Internet as well. AMD had existing deals with Founder Group - China's second largest PC vendor - and HP to sell its processors in China, but Legend is a much bigger win with close to 30 percent of the market versus 10 percent for Founder.

Lenovo will sell one system with the Athlon 64 3200+ chip and another with the Athlon XP 3000+ chip. Both systems are aimed at customers looking for high-performance gear, particularly the Athlon 64 box that can run 64-bit software.

"The AMD processor-based consumer computer launched today will be able to better satisfy end user needs on broadband, 3D gaming, audio visual entertainment, and special applications based on 64-bit platforms," said Jia ZhaoHui, general manager of Lenovo's retail products group.

AMD must be thrilled to see Lenovo give it a chance, after being snubbed here in the US for so long by Dell. Lenovo and Intel have a tight relationship, and it looked like the company, like Dell, might be going the single-supplier route. ®

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