Lenovo Group’s Yang Yuanqing asked for patience as he tries to get China\u2019s top PC maker growing once more, but for the first time publicly vowed to step down as chairman and chief executive if he doesn\u2019t deliver on a critical sales goal.<\/p>\n
Yang, who helped grow Lenovo into the world\u2019s largest PC maker but also orchestrated the acquisitions of Motorola and IBM\u2019s low-end server business, is now betting big on artificial intelligence. He wants to plough $1 billion over the next three to four years into research, joining a race with much larger rivals Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings to crank out the next generation of intelligent, user-aware devices.<\/p>\n
Nearer term, he intends to transform the company\u2019s sales online into an e-commerce juggernaut that can bring in 80 billion yuan ($12 billion) of annual revenue within three years. Yang proclaimed to conference attendees on Thursday that he hoped to do so through JD.com, China\u2019s second largest online retail service and Alibaba\u2019s closest rival.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s that last objective he intends to hit – or throw in the towel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to step down. I\u2019m confident we can achieve that. That\u2019s not something worrying,\u201d Yang said in an interview Thursday after lifting the lid on a slew of prototype devices at Lenovo World, the company\u2019s annual showcase. Those included a smart speaker housing the \u201cCava\u201d digital assistant, a virtual reality headset, and new laptops. \u201cInvestors should have more patience. If you want to see the result, it will take time,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Lenovo became the world\u2019s largest maker of personal computers after picking up International Business Machines Corp\u2019s PC division in 2005, a deal that heralded the arrival of Chinese corporations on the global technology scene and helped forge valuable US client relationships. Then came two successive acquisitions that, while intended to propel its entry into smartphones and datacenter servers, haven\u2019t gone as smoothly.<\/p>\n
Motorola has since bled smartphone market share, while Yang himself admitted Thursday that the datacenter business has proven tougher than initially anticipated. Both divisions remain in the red, a significant drag on its bottom line.<\/p>\n
Even in PCs, Lenovo narrowly lost its lead to HP in the first quarter, though it managed to increase market share as industry shipments grew for the first time since 2012. Yet demand remains depressed overall and Lenovo needs to tap new sources of growth – or turn around its loss-making smartphone division. Lenovo\u2019s re-enlisted the executive who steered the acquisition of Motorola – Liu Jun – to run its Chinese PC arm, shaking up its senior ranks to try and breathe new life into a stagnating business.<\/p>\n
Yang is now exploring other ways to rejuvenate its core business, including a tie-up with Fujitsu. Lenovo is said to be in talks to merge PC businesses with the Japanese company, but Yang would only say that both companies are working on some sort of a deal, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still in negotiation. If the deal\u2019s fair, we want the deal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n