While ASUS' notebook business is going through a rough patch, competitor Lenovo appears to be doing quite well. The company announced today that its revenues were up 10% during the fiscal first quarter. According to the official line, the successful first quarter is due to the strong notebook sales and an expanding market in China, which somehow comes to contradict what ASUS' CEO, Jerry Shen, announced earlier this week.

Lenovo is among the leading notebook vendors, holding the number four spot in the world's biggest computer makers. The company reported a net income of $110m for the quarter that ended on June 30, compared with the $66.8m reported last year. The revenues were up to $4.2bn, compared with the $3.9bn registered a year ago.

"Despite a softening global economy, we delivered solid gains in worldwide sales, PC shipments and profits, achieving our seventh consecutive quarter of profitable growth with positive operating results in our international business," said Chairman Yang Yuanqing. "Our improved E/R ratio also reflected progress in our operational efficiency. Looking forward, we will invest even greater effort and resources into the development of emerging markets and our consumer business, and ensure an effective execution of our strategies." he added.

The company also announced that it completed the sale of its mobile handset branch in March 2008, in order to better focus on its core PC business.

Lenovo's desktop shipments marked only a 3% year-over-year growth, with revenues of $1.7bn, but continue to gain share in the worldwide desktop market.

The news comes to confirm the company's success on the notebook segment, which is where it has a stronger position, as opposed to the desktop one. The release of the recent X200 notebook, which is believed to be a competitor to Apple's MacBook Air, could also boost the company's revenues. The IdeaPad lineup also looks fairly promising, with the release of the small-sized S10 netbook.