Despite sluggish PC shipment growth worldwide, China’s top PC vendor, Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), continued to pick up steam in the third quarter, overtaking US giant Dell Inc to become the world’s No. 2 PC vendor, market researchers IDC and Gartner Inc said yesterday.
“Lenovo has now outpaced the market by more than 10 percent for the past nine quarters, and by 20 percent or more in six of these periods. The results moved Lenovo ahead of Dell in the third quarter after trailing by a small margin in the second quarter,” IDC said in a statement.
Lenovo experienced strong gains across all regions as it continued its channel expansion and capitalized on disarray among the other top players, it said.
OPTIONS
The No. 1 player, Hewlett-Packard Co, is considering a spinoff of its PC division, while Acer Inc (宏碁), the No. 4 vendor, is undergoing a restructuring.
Lenovo’s partnership with NEC Corp and the acquisition of Medion AG added incremental volumes and provided new access to the Japanese and west European markets, IDC said.
Lenovo this year formed a joint venture with NEC, a deal in which the Japanese PC maker received US$175 million in Lenovo shares.
In July, Lenovo acquired German PC maker Medion, for which it said it would pay up to 465 million euros (US$637.5 million) in cash and stock, partly via a public offer.
“Lenovo has surpassed two competitors to capture the No. 2 spot in worldwide PCs in just two quarters,” Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing (楊元慶) said yesterday in a statement.
GLOBAL LEADER
“This is the highest ranking Lenovo has achieved in worldwide PC sales and, given the current competitive environment, positions the company as a strong challenger to ultimately become the global market leader,” he said.
Acer continued to struggle with inventory clearing and adjusting its strategies following declines in netbook sales and its management shake-up.
Acer’s total shipments were down 20.6 percent from a year ago — its fourth consecutive quarterly decline, according to IDC.
In contrast, its Taiwanese rival, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), had a strong quarter, posting growth of more than 30 percent.
ASUSTEK
“Strong gains in the Asia-Pacific, along with improvements in EMEA [Europe, the Middle East and Africa], helped Asustek overtake Toshiba Corp for No. 5 spot in worldwide shipments,” IDC said.
Asustek encountered difficulties adjusting to the decline in netbook PC shipments, but shipments of mainstream notebooks fared well, especially in emerging markets, it said.
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 91.8 million units in the third quarter, up 3.2 percent from the third quarter of last year, Gartner said.
IDC estimated that shipment grew by a slightly higher 3.6 percent to 91.88 million units.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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