By Brenda Goh
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China’s Lenovo Group Ltd, the world’s biggest maker of personal computers, on Wednesday posted a better-than-expected jump in first-quarter profit as COVID-19 curbs continued to spur work-from-home demand.
Shares in the company rose by as much as 9.7% after its results, and were on course for their biggest daily percentage gain since March 30.
Profit for the quarter ended June 30 rose 119% to $466 million, versus $213 million in the same quarter last year, and above an average estimate of $345.23 million from six analysts, according to Refinitiv data.
Revenue rose 27% to $16.9 billion from $13.3 billion a year earlier. Analysts expected revenue of $16 billion. It also posted net income margin of 2.8%, which the company said was the highest in many years
Lenovo said a recovery in IT spending was fuelling demand and supporting higher average selling prices of its products, and it expected the total personal computer market would continue to grow over the next five years.
“The accelerated digital and intelligent transformation has created significant market opportunities globally,” Lenovo’s Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang said in a statement.
“We will continue to increase R&D investment, aiming to double it over the next three years.”
The results were the first earnings released by the company since it reorganised its business groups in February.
Analysts say pandemic-driven consumer demand for PCs is starting to slow, but shortages of components like chips, driven by stronger-than-expected global demand for PCs, tablets, and electronic cars, remain an industry concern.
Worldwide shipments of personal computers rose 13% year-on-year to hit 82.3 million units in the second quarter of 2021, with desktop shipments growing for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2019, research firm Canalys said in a report https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/Canalys-global-PC-market-Q2-2021 last month.
Lenovo extended its industry lead, shipping more than 20 million units for the third consecutive quarter to take 24.4% market share, compared with HP Inc with 22.6% and Dell with 17%, Canalys said.
(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional reporting by Donny Kwok in Hong Kong; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Jane Wardell and Kim Coghill)
