10 Key Facts the Channel Should Know About Lenovo
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Third-Quarter Revenue Rose 30%
Lenovo's net income reached $253 million on revenue of $14.1 billion in its third fiscal quarter. Profit was adversely affected by M&A-related charges in 2014. -
Recent Major Acquisitions
Lenovo bought the x86 server business from IBM for $2.1 billion and Motorola Mobility's mobile handset business for $2.91 billion from Google in 2014. In 2005, Lenovo acquired IBM's PC business. -
Strong Balance Sheet
At the end of 2014, Lenovo had cash reserves of $1.3 billion, 30 years after its founding as Legend in Beijing in 1984. -
Market Share
Lenovo derives 65% of its revenue now from PCs, 24% from mobile products and 9% from enterprise offerings. A year ago, PCs accounted for 81% of Lenovo's sales. The company holds a 20% share of the global PC market. -
PC and Tablet Revenue
In the third quarter, Lenovo's global PC and tablet sales reached $9.2 billion, generating a pre-tax profit of $494 million. -
Server Sales
Lenovo for the third quarter reported that the ThinkServer brand and the System x business unit sales reached $1.2 billion. The System x unit accounted for $986 million. Lenovo, like IBM before it, still lost money ($42 million) for the quarter on servers, but claims to be the third-largest provider of servers with a 10% market share. -
One Unified Channel Program
Unlike many of its major rivals, Lenovo has only one channel program covering tablets, PCs and servers. Lenovo's channel group for the Americas now accounts for 30% of the company's revenue. -
Managed Service Provider Outreach
Lenovo's Kickstart program allows service providers to defer payments for up to 120 days, while its Rent and Grow program mirrors IT payments to usage. A Trade-In program for eligible products is also available to assist in recovering capital from currently installed assets. -
Overlapping Storage Partnerships
Under the terms of the deal with IBM, Lenovo resells IBM storage offerings but also has a joint venture addressing storage products with EMC. -
Next Up for Lenovo
Lenovo will soon add 25 new services to its TopSeller Guide to complement TopSeller System x hardware, which will allow partners to sell complete solutions that maximize uptime and reduce long-term cost of ownership.
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Why Metrics Matter to the Channel Following the acquisitions of the x86 server business from IBM and the Motorola Mobility unit from Google, it was only a matter of time before Lenovo made its presence known across a much bigger swath of the channel. Lenovo recently unified its channel program in the United States under the leadership of Chris Frey, the company's channel chief for North America, and announced an initiative to entice managed service providers (MSPs) to standardize on Lenovo servers and endpoints. With the channel organizations in the Americas now accounting for 30 percent of Lenovo's revenue, the company clearly aims to take server share from both Dell and Hewlett-Packard to continue to fuel its growth. On the PC and tablet fronts, Lenovo claims to have a 20 percent share of the global market and, at least in North America, has yet to launch smartphones and other peripherals that could fuel its growth even further. Here's a look at 10 important facts and figures the channel should know about Lenovo.