[5] Its global headquarters are in Beijing, and Morrisville, North Carolina, United States;[3][4] it has research centers at these locations, elsewhere in China, in Stuttgart, Germany, and in Yamato, Kanagawa, Japan.
[14] Legend listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1994 and became the largest PC manufacturer in China and eventually in Asia; they were also domestic distributors for HP printers, Toshiba laptops, and others.
Initially specializing in televisions, the company migrated towards manufacturing and marketing computers.Liu Chuanzhi and his group of ten experienced engineers, teaming up with Danny Lui,[19] officially founded Lenovo in Beijing on 1 November 1984, with 200,000 yuan.
Proceeds from the offering were used to finance sales offices in Europe, North America and Australia, to expand and improve production and research and development, and to increase working capital.
Today, IBM is responsible for overseeing servicing and repair centers, and is considered an authorized distributor and refurbisher of the Think line of products produced by Lenovo.
Lenovo cited their desire to take advantage of increased sales due to the 2014 World Cup that would be hosted by Brazil and the 2016 Summer Olympics and CCE's reputation for quality.
At the end of its first two years, Lenovo Group had met many of its original challenges, including integrating two disparate cultures in the newly formed company, maintaining the Think brand image for quality and innovation, and improving supply chain and manufacturing efficiencies.
[97] On 20 June 2017, Lenovo's Data Center Group relaunched the ThinkServer product line as ThinkSystem,[98] which consisted of 17 new machine type models, in the catalog formate containing form factors such as Tower, 1U/2U, Blades, Dense and 4U Mission Critical Intel-based servers.
[99] Again, in May 2020, Lenovo DCG further expanded its AMD offerings to incorporate 2-proc systems, the SR645 and the SR665,[100] continuing to exemplify its approach to being the Most Trusted Data Center Advisor in the market.
[134][135] A number of factors have been cited as the cause of this reduced demand, including the fact that Lenovo relied heavily on carriers to sell its phones, its phones lacked strong branding and unique features to distinguish them in the competitive Chinese market where a weak economy and saturated market is slowing demand[136][137] and the culture clash between a more hierarchical PC company and the need to be nimble to sell rapidly-evolving smartphones.
[145] In 2015 Lenovo launched a strategic cooperation with IngDan (硬蛋), a subsidiary of Chinese electronics e-commerce company Cogobuy Group, to penetrate into the intelligent hardware sector.
[146] Lenovo wanted to procure High-Tech hardware in the then newly emerging Internet of Things (IoT) economy[147] and formed a strategic partnership with Cogobuy in which it previously primarily bought IC components from.
"[159] Previously, lack of integration due to numerous foreign acquisitions and an excessive number of "key performance indicators" (KPIs) was making Lenovo's expansion expensive and creating unacceptably slow delivery times to end-customers.
Lenovo also doubled-down on vertical integration and manufacturing near target markets in order to cut costs at time when its competitors were making increased use of outsourcing offshoring.
[162][163] In 2015, Lenovo and Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited, a government-sponsored business park for technology firms, reached a deal to "jointly build a cloud service and product research and development center".
[167] In August 2020, The Intercept reported that Lenovo imported about 258,000 laptops from the Chinese manufacturer Hefei Bitland Information Technology, a company, among others, accused by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute of using Uyghur forced labor.
In July 2020, the United States Commerce Department added 11 companies, including Hefei Bitland, implicated in human rights abuses on the Entity List.
[171] The key trends for Lenovo are (as of the financial year ending March 31):[172][173] Alongside Beijing, the company has operational centres in Lorong Chuan, Singapore, and Morrisville, North Carolina[174][175] (near Raleigh in the Research Triangle metropolitan area)[176] in the United States.
Lenovo replaced the unprofitable Aluminum Corporation of China Limited, a state-owned enterprise, on the list of 50 key companies on the Hong Kong stock exchange that constitute the Hang Seng Index.
In a statement, Yang said, "While the transaction is a personal financial matter, I want to be very clear that my decision to make this investment is based on my strong belief in the company's very bright future.
Speaking of both men Yang Yuanqing said, "We believe that they will add a great deal to our strategic thinking, long-term direction and, ultimately, our ability to achieve our aspirations in the PC plus era."
[202] Bryant appeared in a social campaign titled "The Everyday Kobe Challenge" for the launch of Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines in the same year.
These included slim power banks, 3D printers that can print food such as chocolate, an outdoor sound box, and a Wi-Fi based control system for home automation.
[86] As of July 2013, Lenovo believes that urbanization initiatives being pushed by former premier Li Keqiang will allow it to sustain sales growth in China for the foreseeable future.
Speaking at Lenovo's annual general meeting in Hong Kong in 2013, Yang Yuanqing said: "I believe urbanisation will help us further increase the overall [domestic] PC market."
Lenovo previously benefited from the Chinese government's rural subsidies, part of a wider economic stimulus initiative, designed to increase purchases of appliances and electronics.
[216] Lenovo first started doing business in South Africa, establishing a sales office, and then expanded to East African markets such as Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda.
[217] Lenovo picked Nigeria in 2013 to release its smartphone because unlike South Africa and other African countries, there is no requirement to partner with a local telecom firm to sell its phones.
[218] In the long term, according to Braum, "Lenovo in Africa will focus on continuing to consistently supply personal computer products and allow this market to grow, while moving into new territory such as mobile and enterprise.
This was discovered by Computerworld writer Michael Horowitz, who had purchased several Think systems with the Customer Feedback program installed, which seemed to log usage data and metrics.