Lenovo claims 19 pct operational profit growth in quarterly report

Lenovo group, a world name since buying out IBM's PC business last December, announced in its quarterly report Friday.

Its core business has seen an year-on-year increase of 4 percent and its operational profits has risen 19 percent from the same period last year.

Lenovo's third fiscal quarterly report (from October to December of 2004) said that it will phase out non-core businesses until they account for only 0.6 percent of the total operational volume. The company will instead focus on PC and mobile phone businesses, said Yang Yuanqing, president and chief executive officer of Lenovo.

"The guidelines for Lenovo's strategic adjustment and reform after acquisition are 'concentration, customer-oriented and efficiency,' and our group is moving forward upon them," Yang said.

A world famous research institution said recently in its surveythat Lenovo PC's international market share has reached 28.1 percent, the third quarter of consecutive rises.

Lenovo's 1.75 billion US dollars purchase is the largest overseas acquisition by a Chinese company and some worried that the company was not ready to carry on IBM's world famous brand.

"The market consensus is quite negative about the deal as the major problem with the PC market is tight margins and cutthroat competition," said JP Morgan analyst Johnny Chan.

Yang said, however, after Lenovo and IBM's efforts to integrateits employees and clients resources, more than 90 percent IBM clients responded positively, their survey indicates.

Source: Xinhua