Visitors at Lenovo Group's booth look at the company's products at a trade show in Beijing in March. Provided to China Daily

No 1 PC maker aims to take a bite out of Apple in computer sales

Lenovo Group Ltd is hoping to lift its combined shipment of desktops, laptops and tablet computers to be No 1 in the world within two years, overtaking Apple Inc, CEO Yang Yuanqing said on Wednesday.

The biggest personal computer maker also pledged to build a stronger service arm, especially in the cloud sector, during the next fiscal year.

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As of the fiscal year that ended March 31, Lenovo had shipped 55 million PCs, 50 million smartphones and 9.2 million tablets.

The company's annual earnings hit a record high of $817 million, a jump of nearly 30 percent year-on-year, the company said in its annual report.

Lenovo described the past fiscal year as "truly outstanding", as the Beijing-based enterprise continued to show better-than-market performance and put pressure on Apple and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in smartphone and tablet sales.

"The record sales and profits that we delivered last year prove that Lenovo can grow and deliver its commitments, no matter the market conditions," Yang said.

As China is Lenovo's home turf, it came as no surprise that it was also its biggest earnings source. About a third of sales were generated in the nation where Lenovo owns a substantial market share in PC and smartphone sectors.

PC shipments to Europe, the Middle East and Africa grew by 33.3 percent during the last fiscal quarter, which started in January, it said.

"Lenovo was able to close the gap between itself and Samsung in the Chinese smartphone market in the past year," said Sun Qi, vice-president of local consultancy Sino Market Research Ltd.

"With Motorola's mobility unit joining the group later this year, it will be strong enough to pose some serious challenges to the South Korean company," Sun said.