Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo, is an American-Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, business solutions, and related services. Products manufactured by the company include desktop computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, workstations, servers, supercomputers, electronic storage devices, IT management software, and smart TVs. Its best-known brands include its ThinkPad business laptop line, the IdeaPad, Yoga, and Legion consumer laptop lines, and the IdeaCentre and ThinkCentre desktop computer lines. As of 2022, Lenovo is the world's largest personal computer vendor by unit sales.
Lenovo was founded in Beijing on November 1, 1984 as Legend by a team of engineers led by Liu Chuanzhi and Danny Lui. Initially specializing in televisions, the company migrated towards manufacturing and selling computers. Lenovo grew to become the market leader in China and raised nearly US$30 million in an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Since the 1990s, Lenovo has increasingly diversified the personal computer market and made a number of corporate acquisitions, with the most notable being acquiring and integrating most of IBM's personal computer business and its x86-based server business, as well as creating its own smartphone.
Lenovo has operations in over 60 countries and sells its products in around 180 countries. It was incorporated in Hong Kong, with global headquarters in Beijing and operational headquarters in Morrisville, North Carolina, USA. It has research centers in Beijing, Chengdu, Yamato (Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan), Singapore, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Morrisville, and also has Lenovo NEC Holdings, a joint venture with NEC that produces personal computers for the Japanese market.
Lenovo's manufacturing operations are a departure from the usual industry practice of outsourcing to contract manufacturers. Lenovo instead focuses on vertical integration to avoid excessive reliance on OEMs and to keep down costs. Speaking on this topic, Yang Yuanqing said, “Selling PCs is like selling fresh fruit. The speed of innovation is very fast, so you have to know how to keep up with the pace, control inventory, to match supply with demand and handle very fast turnover.”