Revenue of Chinese tech giant jumps 17% to $20b in quarter ended Dec

Chinese tech heavyweight Lenovo Group Ltd said on Wednesday it recorded historic highs for both profit and revenue in the quarter ended in December, as it navigated wider industry supply challenges and delivered rapid growth and profitability across all key business groups and geographies.

Its quarterly net income grew 62 percent year-on-year to a record $640 million, marking the sixth consecutive quarter its net income grew at a rate of over 50 percent. Lenovo's revenue also hit a record $20.1 billion, up 17 percent year-on-year.

Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo, said the company continued to embrace the opportunities driven by accelerated digital and intelligent transformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"With the first $20 billion revenue quarter in our history, we remain on track to double both our net margin and research and development investment in three years from the fiscal 2020-21 level," Yang said.

Specifically, the company's intelligent devices group, which includes personal computers and smartphones, saw revenue growth of 16 percent year-on-year to $17.6 billion, with even stronger profitability growth, up 21 percent year-on-year to $1.4 billion, on an already high base.

Global shipments of PCs in 2021 hit 348.8 million units, marking their highest level since 2012, with Lenovo retaining its hold on the top spot, said market research company International Data Corp.

"The year 2021 has truly been a return to form for the PC," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's mobile and consumer device trackers. "While consumer and educational demand has tapered in some developed markets, we continue to believe the overall PC market has reset at a much higher level than before the pandemic."

Lenovo predicted the market for smart devices continues to benefit from the new normal of hybrid work and the PC market is forecast to remain strong and stable, shifting to commercial and premium segments.

On top of the PC business, Lenovo's infrastructure solutions group also delivered record performance, achieving profitability for the first time since the company acquired IBM's server business in 2014. Revenue expanded 19 percent year-on-year to reach $1.9 billion.

China recently approved plans to build four national integrated computing hubs as part of its ongoing efforts to increase the nation's computing capacity and speed up construction of new infrastructure.

Lenovo said it has already accumulated green data center resources in cooperation with domestic partners, and it will continue leveraging the opportunities to seek faster growth.