Lenovo, the Chinese PC manufacturer with $34 billion revenue last year, became for the first time the leader in the PC market, surpassing the American company Hewlett-Packard, according to market research company Gartner and IDC.
In the second quarter of this year, Lenovo has reached a global market share of 16.7%, higher than the 15% market share in the same period last year. The market share of Chinese PC manufacturer is less than one percentage point higher than that of HP, whose sales fell by about 5%, according to Gartner.
The advance of Lenovo on the PC market comes at a time when sales on this market shrank in the second quarter by 11.4%, according to IDC, respectively 10.9%, according to Gartner, this being the fifth consecutive quarterly decline. The data provide evidence of structural changes in the computer market, as more and more people prefer to buy tablets and smartphones instead of PCs.
“The battle for PC leadership could certainly still go back and forth,” said Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo’s CEO and added: “More than half of Lenovo’s revenue then comes from outside of China.”
Yang Yuanqing was upbeat, saying that the PC market is changing, but it continues to be a $200 billion opportunity and the battle for the leadership of this market will certainly have new developments. He is very confident that there is still substantial room for profitable growth and innovation in the global PC market.
On the other hand Lenovo’s main competitor HP, will try to regain their position of PC market leader: “We don’t like being No. 2 and we don’t plan to stay there. We’re also focused on building a profitable business that’s smart about its future,” said an HP spokesman.
Lenovo, which sells the ThinkPad series acquired with the PC division from IBM, had benefited from the reputation it has in its country of origin but also in emerging markets, more than half of its sales coming from outside China.
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