14 DAY TRIAL // The European division of the Chinese PC manufacturer and vendor Lenovo is determined to transform the company in one of the top two computer vendors both in Europe and worldwide.
According to Milko Van Duijl, president of Lenovo EMEA, the company was always focused on creating a bridge between the market leaders (such as HP and Dell) and the rest of the PC vendors on the market. "If you look at the market there isn't much of a gap between first and second or between third and fourth. The key isn't about whether you're third or fourth, it's about bridging that gap on second place," Van Duijl stated in a conference call on Friday.
He also claimed that Lenovo's EMEA operation is a key factor in transforming the market and bringing the mother-company closer to the rival companies on the European continent.
"Overall we grew 15.1 percent year-on-year globally in our latest quarterly results. For the second quarter in a row EMEA is the fastest growth region, up 19.1 percent," said Van Duijl. "Based on IDC numbers we have grown our share in both desktop and laptop markets. We achieved it by executing our strategy to grow faster and with more profitability than our rivals."
Lenovo is one of the most important PC vendors in China, but the company is still faint when compared to the two top manufacturers on the global market. According to Duijl, Lenovo is more concerned with increasing its brand awareness globally. This is the very reason Lenovo has courted Packard-Bell for so long. In fact, Packard-Bell was a big stake, and Lenovo lost it for its archrival Acer.
"We don't have one headquarters; if we did people would wait around for headquarters to make decisions. Instead we run the company out of five locations," he said. The company will engage in some extremely popular actions, such as the Williams Formula 1 motor racing contest.
Additionally, Lenovo has initiated a charity action to celebrate the six-month countdown until the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. The company will auction no less than 20,000 specially designed units, that are stamped with the Olympic Torch.