Lenovo benefits from premium laptops as quarterly profit soars

Hong-Kong listed Chinese laptop maker Lenovo (HK:0992) saw second-quarter profit jump 21% to $168 million as premium PC sales lifted the top line. Revenue soared 14% to $13.38 billion — highest in about four years – helped by sales of commercial computers.

In the Hong Kong market, Lenovo shares rose more than 5% in afternoon trading on positive results.

After HP Inc (HPQ) dethroned Lenovo in 2017 as the world’s largest PC maker, it seems that the new 23.7% market share for the latter has helped it regain the top spot.

Global PC shipments for the quarter inched 0.1% to 67.2 million units according to Gartner data, with Lenovo taking a huge chunk of it.

The pre-tax income from Lenovo’s PC and Smart Devices segment rocketed 42% to $940 million in fiscal first half of April through September, according to reports.

By October end, Lenovo followed the likes of Alibaba (BABA), Walmart-owned Sam’s Club, JD, and Amazon (AMZN) to launch its first cashier-less store in Beijing. The “Lenovo Lecoo Unmanned Store” sells juice boxes, cup noodles, and similar small snacks using facial recognition to identify customer’s account profile. The rest is similar to Amazon Go where the consumer can pick items and freely exit the store, while account will be automatically charged.