Tech giant Lenovo remains top PC supplier amid steepest global market decline since 2013

Chinese technology giant Lenovo Group held onto its lead as the world’s largest supplier of personal computers in the second quarter of 2015, but suffered its first year-on-year decline since early 2013.

That reflected a significant drop in total industry shipments worldwide last quarter, according to separate preliminary estimates released on Thursday in the United States by research firms IDC and Gartner.

According to IDC, Hong Kong-listed Lenovo recorded total shipments of 13.4 million personal computers in the quarter to June, down 7.5 per cent from 14.5 million units a year ago, for a 20.3 per cent global market share.

Data from Gartner showed Lenovo, which operates in more than 160 countries, shipped 13.4 million personal computers last quarter, a 6.8 per cent decrease from 14.4 million in the same period last year, for a global share of 19.7 per cent.

Lenovo, which has dual headquarters in Beijing and Morrisville, North Carolina in the US, was unfazed by the market slowdown.

“PCs are still the heart of our business, and we have ample opportunity for continued growth there,” Gianfranco Lanci, the president and chief operating officer at Lenovo, said in a statement to the South China Morning Post on Friday.

“Our strength in PCs fuels the rest of our strategy,” Lanci said. He described that advantage as helping Lenovo build “new growth engines in enterprise, mobility and ecosystem, and transforming ourselves from a company that simply sells devices to one that builds enduring customer relationships through unique products”.