Reporting strong growth as it is expanding into emerging markets, Lenovo said Thursday that for the quarter ending in March its net profit more than tripled, reaching $ 42 million, while revenues increased 13% to $ 4.88 billion.
Lenovo reported that PC shipments for the quarter rose 16 percent over the same period a year earlier, compared to a decline in the global industry of 1.1%.
The company, big China PC manufacturer, also reported strong earnings for the last fiscal year, profit more than doubled, according to a published report of earnings Thursday.
Net profit of the company is increased to 273 million dollars, up to $ 129 million in the previous exercise. Revenue $ 21.6 billion, increasing by $ 16.6 billion. At the same time, the company saw PC shipments increase by 28% from the previous year.
During a webcast of earnings, CEO of Lenovo Yang Yuanqing attributed growth to the company's strategy to protect his own land in China, while increasing in regions with the development of markets such as Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe.
Lenovo generates 46% of its turnover in China, which is called to become more large global PC sales in 2013, according to the IDC research firm. Around the world, Lenovo is the fourth largest manufacturer of PCs, behind Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Acer.
In the last year, the company also moved off its core business PC and made efforts for mobile products such as tablets and smartphones, establishing a new group of business Mobile Internet and the digital home.
Lenovo plans on releasing the tablets again for the United States and selective markets in the coming months, said Yang. Previously, the company said it will publish its tablet of LePad in the world in June.
In China, the company had already launched a smartphone device called the phone. Then this March, Lenovo has launched its tablet of LePad in the country. Objectives for the sale of the company for these products are "ambitious", said Yang. In China, the company wants to double its sales of smartphone and to capture 20% of the shares of the Tablet market, he said.
Lenovo COO Rory Read, said the feedback for the LePad in China was "very strong". The tablet was designed for the user in Chinese, by providing a Chinese language interface and native applications in the country. This sets it apart from other tablets in the Chinese market, which were the fundamental weakness of not designed for local users, reading added.
Currently, iPad Apple has a share of 78 percent in the Chinese market which tablet, according to Analysys International Beijing-based research firm.
Bad news for the computer industry has just recently been released. Thanks to weak demand for consumer PCs, growth for worldwide PC shipments showed a 1.1% decline from the first quarter of 2010 according to a Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. Weak demand for consumer PCs was the primary inhibitor. However, despite the weakening of sales around the globe, the Asia Pacific region showed encouraging growth as PC shipments surpassed 28.2 million in the first quarter of 2011. This is interesting due to the fact that, statistically speaking, sales of consumer PCs usually do not show this much popularity or growth in the beginning of the year. The first quarter of most years is stereotypically slow for PC sales. Gartner also noted, however, that these shipment results indicate potential sluggishness and not a typical seasonal slowdown. Gartner pointed out that these figures are well below earlier predictions for a 3% growth in the first quarter of 2011. In response to different markets in Asia, Gartner said that consumer PC sales were also slow both in China and also in Taiwan and that they failed to attract customers during the celebration of Chinese New Year. Consumers in India were occupied by the Cricket World Cup and preferred to upgrade their personal PCs or buy a new TV rather than home electronics. In addition to that, PC shipments in Japan hit a decline of 13.1% in 2011's first quarter. According to Principle Analyst for Gartner Mikako Kitagawa, "Weak demand for consumer PCs was the biggest inhibitor of growth. Low prices for consumer PCs, which had long stimulated growth, no longer attracted buyers. Instead, consumers turned their attention to media tablets and other consumer electronics. With the launch of the iPad 2 in February, more consumers either switched to buying an alternative device, or simply held back from buying PCs. We're investigating whether this trend is likely to have a long-term effect on the PC market." Computer company HP accounted for 17.6% of worldwide PC shipments in the first quarter of 2011. HP also maintained the number one spot. Acer saw declining shipments of 12.2% and Dell reported a shipment decline year-over-year for the first time in six quarters. Lenovo continued to price products competitively in the consumer market as well as the professional market and enjoyed the strongest growth among the top vendors as a result. Source: 
