Lenovo has announced results for its third fiscal quarter ended 31 December 2017.
Revenue was $12,9-billion, a 6.3 percent increase year-over-year, and 10 percent increase over the second fiscal quarter of FY2017/18.
Lenovo continued to enjoy significant revenue gains in PCs and smart devices (PCSD) and the Data Center Group (DCG). The Mobile Business Group (MBG) performed as expected for the quarter. Lenovo showed strong pre-tax income growth in the quarter, up sharply to US$150 million, a four-fold increase from last quarter, and nearly a 50% jump from the same period a year earlier.
Lenovo management credit the performance to execution of its “three-wave strategy”, which emphasizes leadership in its core businesses, growth in key segments, and investment in emerging technologies.
During the quarter, Lenovo drove growth in PC sales, solid data center and mobile performance, and strong momentum in the developing areas of device plus cloud and infrastructure plus cloud technologies.
“Lenovo is accelerating its transformation to become a world leader across every part of our business. We continue to see significant improvement and strong performance in some of the most exciting technology market sectors, smart devices and data center. We saw revenue, margins, profit, innovation, performance and customer experience all extend the momentum that developed during the prior quarter, and these results reaffirm the transformation strategy we are executing,” says Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo chairman and CEO.
The company’s PC and Smart Devices (PCSD) business continued to show strength in the third quarter. Lenovo tracked solid momentum in this unit and signs of the overall worldwide market trending higher. Industry numbers met expectations on the quarter, validating Lenovo’s belief in taking advantage of developing high-growth opportunities in this market segment.
During the quarter, the company enhanced its momentum in emerging technology areas, including Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). The flagship Star Wars: Jedi Challenges AR device in partnership with Disney is reaffirming the company’s status as an emerging leader in the VR/AR space.
Lenovo’s Data Center Group (DCG) continues its transformation, tracking not only to its commitments for the third consecutive quarter but also delivering its highest revenue in the last two years. This progress has been fueled by consistent momentum across all segments and all geographies.
Lenovo’s Mobile Business Group (MBG) met expectations for the quarter even as the industry faces enormous competitive challenges. As the company has indicated previously, it takes a long-term view of this business and believes that the right strategy is in place to deliver short-term improvements and sustainable growth in the long-term. Latin America continues to be a stronghold, outgrowing the market by almost 30 points year-on-year.
The Company’s gross profit increased 9.8 percent year-over-year to US$1.8 billion, which was a 8.6 percent improvement quarter-to-quarter. Gross margin was 13,5%, a slight increase compared to last year. Operating profit increased by $114-million quarter-to-quarter. Basic loss per share was 2.53 US cents or 19.72 HK cents, resulting from a one-off non-cash tax charge of $400-million. This follows the re-measurement of US deferred tax assets after the recently enacted US tax reform legislation. In view of this, the company believes that the lower tax rate can benefit the US operations over time.