Lenovo eyes top global PC vendor spot this year

Dubai Lenovo is focused on becoming a household name globally as the Chin-ese company faces the prospect of becoming the largest PC vendor for the first time in history. Chances are that the company could take the title in the next 12 months after achieving the highest growth rate among the top five companies in the last two years. Now ranked second largest, Lenovo's market share is just two percentage points below Hewlett-Packard's, according to research firms IDC and Gartner. "The tough economic conditions are creating anxiety and causing more enterprises to adopt austerity measures. It is creating pressure on enterprises to maximise technology investments as CIO IT budgets are anticipated to be flat in 2012," Jack Lee, Corporate Vice-President of Lenovo Group and General Manager for Lenovo Middle East and Africa, told Gulf News. Quoting a Gartner report, he said that CIOs and IT directors are aware of the "iceberg effect" — that PC acquisition costs account for only 20 per cent of the total costs of ownership, and 80 per cent is consumed by ongoing support maintenance. Quoting a Rescuecom's computer reliability ratings survey, he said Lenovo is rated the best. In second place on the reliability scale was Toshiba followed by Samsung in third place. He said that this situation is a sweet spot for the company. Lenovo emerges as a sound choice for enterprises because it passes the increasingly stringent litmus test that CIOs apply on all PC investments. Enterprises are gravitating towards vendors like Lenovo due to low TCOs (total-cost-of-ownership). "We are committed to the PC industry, but we haven't touched the consumer segment as hard as we can and our strategy will be to focus more on the consumer and retail segment in the region this year," Lee said. Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said Lenovo became the second-largest PC vendor in the global market for the first time in the second quarter. The company's expansion was boosted in part by the joint venture with NEC in Japan. However, its aggressive marketing to both the professional and consumer PC markets accelerated its shipment volume. According to Canalys analyst Tim Coulling, the acquisition of Medion in Germany helped Lenovo double its shipments in Western Europe. The vendor's decision to use Android for enterprise and consumer pads gives it a better opportunity than HP to continue gaining market share. This is all part of a "protect and attack" strategy, explains Lee. The idea is to protect market share in China and its commercial PC business, while attacking the markets in which it sees greatest potential for future growth — consumer sales and emerging markets. "More and more will depend on the consumer space, which is where the technology is going," Lee added. "This has been a crucial priority for us." Lenovo's rivals have also indirectly contributed to the company's rise, anal-ysts said. Lenovo took advantage of competitors' shortcomings. Currently, the company's enterprise products outside China have made up the bulk of its global PC sales, accounting for 65 per cent of PC sales, versus 35 per cent for consumers, according to IDC. Even though Lenovo eyes the top spot globally, Lee is not so confident about the leadership in the region. He said, "Our aim is to be in the top three in the next 12 months." Currently, Lenovo enjoys a market share of seven per cent in the Gulf and expects to close the year with around 13 per cent market share. "My biggest goal," he said, "is to make Lenovo the best place on earth to work From gulfnews