Lenovo Group (聯想) expects wireless Internet products to account for up to 80 percent of its sales within five years as it pursues expansion in faster-growing emerging markets, CEO Yang Yuanqing (楊元慶) said yesterday.
Lenovo, the world’s fourth-largest personal computer maker, jumped into the mobile Internet market in January with the unveiling of a smartphone and two Web-linked portable computers.
“Mobile Internet is very important,” Yang said in an interview. “Even today, notebook sales already are higher than desktops.”
“Mobile Internet products are going to be 70 to 80 percent of our sales ... within three to five years,” he added.
Yang said Lenovo planned this year to focus on promoting mobile Internet and sales in emerging economies in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
Lenovo, based in Beijing and Morrisville, North Carolina, was hit hard by the global crisis, which prompted its core corporate customers to slash spending. It suffered three losing quarters before rebounding to a profit in the second half of last year.
Yang said Lenovo’s longer-term strategy, dubbed “protect and attack,” calls for building up its dominant presence in China. The country accounts for nearly half of Lenovo’s global sales, but it faces competition from industry leaders Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc, which are creating products tailored to Chinese customers.
In the latest quarter, Lenovo said sales in India and other emerging markets rose 52 percent over a year earlier, far ahead of the 13 percent sales growth reported for the US and Western Europe.
The company saw its global market share last year rise to 9 percent, its highest level to date.
Yang said Lenovo had no plans for foreign acquisitions but was ready to look at any deals that fit its strategic plans.
Corporate spending on computers has yet to rebound, but companies are expected to step up purchasing in the second half of this year, Yang said. He said he could not foresee when global PC sales might recover to pre-crisis levels.
“I’m not an economist,” he said. “Even for economists, it’s difficult to forecast.”
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