Lenovo retakes No. 3 spot from Acer in Q2 rankings
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(InfoWorld) - Lenovo Group reclaimed the number three spot among PC vendors during the second quarter, pushing rival Acer back into fourth place. But Acer's exceptionally fast growth means the company isÂ likely to overtake LenovoÂ as number three for the entire year, if current trends continue. Acer has been on a roll in recent quarters, grabbing market share and putting pressure on Lenovo. During the first quarter of 2007, Acer tied Lenovo for third place, with both companies reporting shipments of nearly 4 million PCs, giving each company 6.7 percent of the market, according to IDC. Acer, which has made taking the number three spot from Lenovo aÂ principal goal for the year, was able to match Lenovo during the first quarter because of seasonal buying trends in China. Lenovo depends heavily on China, where it has long dominated PC sales. The company's first-quarter sales were slowed by the Chinese New Year holiday, a time when PC sales dive in China. Lenovo saw its first-quarter shipments increase 17.4 percent over the previous year, while Acer's shipments rose 41.4 percent, IDC said. Acer's first quarter sales weren't hit during by Chinese New Year because the company remains a relatively minor player in China, despite having roots in Taiwan, which shares a common language and culture. Acer's presence is much stronger in Taiwan, which also celebrates Chinese New Year. But Taiwan's relatively small population means the holiday had a minor impact on Acer's overall sales during that period. During the second quarter, Lenovo was able to reclaim the number three spot, with a 22.3 percent increase in unit shipments, to almost 4.9 million units, IDC said.Â Acer fell to the number four spot, but showed strong growth during the period. The company's shipments rose 55.4 percent over the same period last year, to almost 4.3 million units -- just 600,000 units fewer than Lenovo. That relatively narrow gap puts Acer within striking distance of Lenovo, assuming current growth trends continue through the rest of the year. Acer did well around the world during the second quarter, with the company posting unit shipment growth of 30 percent or more in every region. The company did particularly well in the Americas, IDC said. "New retail and dealer partner agreements are quickly expanding the company's access to the market, contributing to volume gains," it said. Â
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Lenovo Group, the world's No. 4 personal computer maker, said Thursday that profit in its third fiscal quarter rose 198 percent and forecast strong sales this year despite a possible U.S. economic slowdown.
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By unveiling a new line of stylish laptops ahead of both CES and Macworld, Lenovo stands alone in the limelight today. But is there still room for another large player in the laptop space?
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Fingers lack of Vista demand Acer has scaled back its expectations in the PC market after an optimistic forecast earlier this year.â¦
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Lenovo Group Ltd. (0992.HK), the  world&#039;s third-largest computer maker, swung to a much  sharper-than-expected loss in the fourth quarter, after paying  &#36;1.25 billion for IBM&#039;s  PC arm in 2005.
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(InfoWorld) - Lenovo GroupÂ on Thursday reported a jump in third-quarter profits, even as its turnover during the period remained flat compared to one year ago. Lenovo reported a profit attributable to shareholders of $57.7 million on sales of $4 billion during its fiscal third quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, 2006. That's a 23 percent increase in profits compared to the same period during the previous fiscal year, whenÂ Lenovo reported a profitÂ of $46.8 million on sales of $4 billion, the company said in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange. On a sequential basis, the results show good news for Lenovo. The company saw its profit fall by 53 percent during the first half of its fiscal year -- from $91.2 million to $43.1 million -- compared to the year-ago period. Lenovo's PC shipments during the quarter increased 8 percent over the previous year, outpacing the industry average, which the company pegged at 7 percent, the filing said. As usual,Â China was a strong marketÂ for Lenovo, with PC shipments up 19 percent. The company also saw shipments rise by 3 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. But Lenovo's PC shipments slipped 4 percent in North and South America due to weaker demand from large companies. Shipments fell by 1 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Around 52 percent of Lenovo's revenue came from notebook PCs, as unit shipments rose 20 percent over the previous year, Lenovo said in a press statement. Desktop shipments rose 2 percent, contributing 43 percent of the company's total revenue. The remainder of Lenovo's revenue came from the sale of mobile phones, which contributed 4 percent of revenue. Handset shipments fell by 6 percent compared to the previous year, Lenovo said.
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Is IBM ready to cash out its chips in Lenovo, the world's third-biggest personal-computer maker?  That's a question many Lenovo investors must now be asking themselves following the news that Big Blue is dumping a sizable chunk of its Lenovo equity stake.
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(InfoWorld) - Retail consumers in the U.S. could begin to see great deals on computer purchases as PC vendors get more competitive in the wake ofÂ Acer's announcement on Monday that it plans to buy Gateway. Acer will probably try to reinvigorate the Gateway brand, using spiffier designs and faster processors in an effort to add cachet to Gateway and eMachines labels which are often seen as "bottom dwellers" selling low-cost PCs, said J.P. Gownder, a principal analyst with Forrester Research. In announcing the deal, Acer President Gianfranco Lanci said he planned to preserve Gateway's "powerful and unique brand" in order to cover a variety of consumer market segments, differentiating the two brands over time in an effort to reach a broader variety of consumers. By announcing its plan to concentrate on the U.S. retail market, Acer is signaling that it will not challenge far larger vendors like Hewlett-Packard and Dell for corporate enterprise deals. Acer also said on Monday that it planned to divest Gateway's professional business division, and was already in talks with a potential buyer. That strategy will probably have a far greater impact on Acer's long-time rival Lenovo than on larger vendors, Gownder said. "For HP and Dell, it's going to be two years before this makes an impact on their business," Gownder said. "Lenovo is the company that really loses here, especially if Acer is able to pick up Packard Bell and get a foothold in Europe, as well." On Aug. 7, Lenovo Group announced it had agreed to buy Packard Bell, but that deal appears to be scuttled: part of Monday's news was thatÂ Gateway will exercise its right of first refusal to acquire shares in Packard Bell's parent company. In addition to tripping up its rival Lenovo, Acer will gain valuable retail leverage in the U.S., including Gateway's online retail site and its shelf space in major retailers like Best Buy Co. Inc., Gownder said. Still, Acer faces a large workload in creating a successful merger with Gateway before it begins to reap profits from the move. "Acer has made a smart, imperfect decision. But from what's available to them, it was the best move on the chessboard," Gownder said. Acer now faces pressure to duplicate its success among small business customers and Asian markets in the competitive U.S. retail market, other analysts said. Acquiring Gateway could give it the leverage to succeed, but only if Acer completes a difficult merger, said Charles Smulders, an analyst and managing vice president at Gartner Inc. First, Acer must make sure it retains Gateway's staff in the U.S. channel and retail sectors, while divesting the money-losing professional business, he said. That move would have little effect on Gateway's small stake of the corporate enterprise market, but a larger impact among its government and academic customers. Then, Acer could dedicate its engineers to improving Gateway's image as an economy brand. "The Gateway brand is very well known, but people are unclear what it stands for. So that is one challenge Acer will face," Smulders said. The company will probably try to establish a reputation for using the latest technology, as opposed to marketing Gateway as the brand with the best technical support or the lowest prices, he said. To Acer's advantage, Gateway has been cutting costs for five years already, so that will be a much easier task than HP faced when it bought Compaq, Smulders said. "I certainly think HP will be taking notes, simply because Acer has been gaining ground so fast, particularly outside the U.S. If Acer can pull this off, it would be a serious challenge to HP." HP declined to comment on the possible implications of the deal. "HP does not comment on the business strategies of its competitors," said corporate spokeswoman Emma McCulloch. Â
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Lenovo Group income rose in Q3 due to strong computer demand, but phone shipments are weak.
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Chinese PC maker Lenovo says annual profit up more than 600 percent    BEIJING, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Lenovo Group, the world's third- largest personal computer maker, said Wednesday its annual net income soared 625 percent for the year through March on stronger sales.
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ThinkPads for consumers Lenovo's otherlaptop brandname, the 3000 series, doesn't quite have the same ring to it as ThinkPad. Enter, then, IdeaPad, the new name for the company's consumer notebooks, three of which debuted in the US yesterday.â¦
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Blog: For the first quarter of 2007, Taiwan-based Acer has grabbed a larger market share than Lenovo, according to data collected by iSuppli.
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TAIPEI/SHANGHAI  - Taiwan's Acer Inc   will buy Gateway Inc  for $710 million to double its  U.S. presence and unseat China's Lenovo  as the  world's No. 3 PC maker, while dealing a blow to its efforts to  grow in Europe.
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U.S. computer firm IBM  raised  US$123 million by selling about 3.5 percent of number three  global PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd. (0992.HK), a term sheet  showed, triggering a 7 percent share slide before a suspension  kicked in.
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(InfoWorld) - Acer Inc.'s agreement to acquire Gateway Inc. has foiled Lenovo Group Ltd.'s plans to buy PC vendor Packard Bell BV, and could leave Acer owning both Gateway and Packard Bell. On August 7, Lenovo revealed it was in discussions with Packard Bell over a possible acquisition. At the time,Â it looked like Lenovo had beaten Acer, which was also interested in acquiring the company. However,Â Acer's plan to buy Gateway for $710 million, announced Monday, trumps anything Lenovo brings to the table in its negotiations with Packard Bell. In 2006, Gateway signed an agreement with John Hui, Packard Bell's largest shareholder, that gives Gateway the right of first refusal if he decides to sells PB Holding Co. SARL, the parent company of Packard Bell. What that means is that if Packard Bell wants to enter into a final agreement to be purchased, the company has to ask Gateway first, said Y.T. Du, of Citigroup Global Markets Inc., which represented Acer in the negotiations. Gateway can refuse the deal if it wants and enter into purchase talks with Packard Bell, he said. That is exactly what Gateway has done, announcing plans to exercise its right of first refusal at the same time the Acer deal was unveiled. The agreement between Hui and Gateway is rooted inÂ Gateway's 2004 acquisition of eMachines, a PC vendor that Hui founded. When Hui acquired his stake in PB Holding Co., he granted the right of first refusal to Gateway in exchange for the company waving parts of the noncompete agreement that Hui signed when eMachines was sold. Now that Gateway has entered into talks to acquire PB Holding from Hui, Acer could end up owning both Gateway and Packard Bell. While a Packard Bell acquisition would increase Acer's market share in Europe, a deal also means Acer will face having to integrate two companies with its existing operations instead of only one. "Acer is still really strong in Europe," said Bryan Ma, director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific. Ma worried that Acer's desire to acquire Packard Bell is driven more by a desire to slow Lenovo's growth in Europe, rather than a pressing need to strengthen its own position there. A Lenovo spokeswoman was not immediately available to comment. Â  With additional reporting by Dan Nystedt in Taipei. Â
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(InfoWorld) - IBM sold off a chunk of its stake in Lenovo Group, leading the world's third-largest PC vendor to temporarily suspend trading of its shares in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Lenovo spokeswoman Angela Lee said IBM had informed the company it planned to sell a large block of shares but had not provided specific details of the transaction. IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "The trading of Lenovo's shares has been suspended at our request, pending the release of an announcement ... relating to the placing of Lenovo's shares by IBM," Lee said. At 2:40pm local time Tuesday afternoon, trading of the company's shares remained suspended. IBM did not respond to a request for comment. Lenovo's shares were trading at HK$3.20 (US$0.41) per share when they were suspended, a drop of 7 percent from the previous day's close. That price matches the reported selling price IBM received for its shares, which were offered to investors at a discount, according to several press reports Tuesday. Citing information offered to investors, those reports said IBM sold 300 million shares in Lenovo Group in a sale worth HK$960 million (US$123 million). IBM, whichÂ sold its PC division to LenovoÂ in 2005, has gradually reduced its stake in Lenovo since that deal. A further sale of shares would be in keeping with the company's stated plan to sell down its stake in Lenovo. Prior to the reported sale, IBM held a 13.2 percent stake in Lenovo, making it the company's second-largest shareholder. The sale of shares -- estimated at 3.5 percent of Lenovo's total shares -- will reduce IBM's holdings to 9.7 percent of the company. While IBM reduces its stake in Lenovo, the two companies remain close partners. Lenovo Tuesday announced the signing of a five-year agreement forÂ IBM to provide technical support, installation, deployment and other PC-related services to its customers. The deal could be worth up to US$245 million to IBM, Lenovo said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Â
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Lenovo Group Limited, a Personal Computer brand in China and across Asia has announced a definitive agreement under which Lenovo will acquire IBM&#39;s Personal Computing Division to form the world&#39;s third-largest PC business, bringing IBM&#39;s enterprise-class