Europe a 'stellar performer' for Lenovo

The European market is now one of the stellar performers for Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo, said Milko van Duijl, president, Lenovo Europe, Middle East and Africa.

"Europe is the fastest growing market in the world for Lenovo at this time," he said during a web conference on the one-year anniversary of the Chinese company's acquisition of IBM's personal computing division.

The $1.25 billion (€974 million) acquisition turned Lenovo, then virtually unknown outside its home market where it is the dominant player, into the world's third-largest PC company. While the company has been able to move faster than originally intended to rebrand the IBM PC line under its own name, other aspects of the transition have been less smooth.

Mr van Duijl acknowledged that lead times for PCs remain high at 10 days, which places pressure on reseller partners.

"We are addressing the lead time. That was a problem before under IBM and now that we are building [ computers] in China we are trying to improve it," he said. He said a "satisfactory" lead time for Lenovo was seven to eight days, with an ultimate goal of five to six days.

He denied rumours that the company might be looking for two or three new manufacturing sites in Europe. Lenovo outsources some manufacturing to a partner in Hungary, but Mr van Duijl said Lenovo was not planning to add any others.

However he said Lenovo "was always on the look out" if it needs to expand manufacturing ability.

Lenovo has also hit some potentially worrying bumps in the US market. Politicians and some commentators complained after the US state department arranged to buy 16,000 PCs for its offices, citing national security concerns about placing Chinese computers into government offices.

When the controversy arose last month, Lenovo chairman Yang Yuanqing stressed that Lenovo was not a Chinese state-owned or run company. As Lenovo works to establish an international profile with "worldwide brand ambassadors" such as footballer Ronaldhino, it will wish to avoid any controversy that could hamper its attempts to take on rivals Dell and HP.

Mr van Duijl acknowledged "there were some questions raised" but said Lenovo fully opened its books and operations to US scrutiny and underwent full questioning by the government to complete its acquisition of IBM's PC division.

Lenovo will introduce new products this year, he said, but was not yet ready to launch Lenovo's Asian electronics or mobile phone product lines globally.