Stung by losses, Lenovo turns focus back to China

Hit by a sharp decline in sales and heavy financial losses, Lenovo Group's new management team is turning the company's focus back to China.

"With the changes in the macroeconomic environment, our business in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and the Americas has been impacted greatly, so our company is increasing its focus on China, as well as emerging markets," Liu Chuanzhi, the company's newly reinstated chairman, told reporters during a conference call.

China is Lenovo's most important market, accounting for 45 percent of the company's sales during the most recent quarter.

Lenovo took observers by surprise on Thursday with the announcement that President and CEO William Amelio had resigned at the end of his three-year contract, which ended in December. Amelio, formerly the president of Dell's Asian operations, led Lenovo through an ongoing restructuring program designed to improve the company's competitiveness.

Amelio was replaced by Yang Yuanqing, who will step down from his current position as chairman of Lenovo to take on the CEO role. Liu, the company's founder and former chairman, returned to his former position and Rory Read, Lenovo's senior vice president of global operations, will take on the role of president and chief operating officer.

At the same time that Lenovo announced Amelio's departure, the company reported a quarterly loss of $97 million on sales of $3.6 billion, which represented a decline of 20 percent compared to the same period during the previous year. Whether a renewed focus on China will help Lenovo reverse its fortunes in the short term remains to be seen: the company singled out a drop in Chinese demand for PCs as a primary reason for the lower sales and financial losses.

"It's going to be tough in any of these markets, including China," said Bryan Ma, director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific. "Given their strength in China, I can understand why they want to focus on this area."

In terms of emerging markets outside China, Lenovo needs to focus its efforts on key markets, Ma said, noting that Lenovo's business in India suffered badly during the last quarter of 2008.

Lenovo's management also needs to realize that low prices alone will not be a guarantee of success in emerging markets. "It's more about value. It's critical they don't go into these markets looking only at price," Ma said.

Bringing Yang and Liu back to their previous positions echoes the earlier returns of Michael Dell to Dell and Steve Jobs to Apple during periods when these companies struggled to compete. But Yang and Liu, who ran the company at a time when its sales were largely confined to China, return to a dramatically different company, thanks to the 2004 acquisition of IBM's former PC division.

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

• Email
• Print
• Share
  • Slashdot
  • Digg
  • Stumble
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine