Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( lə-NOH-voh, Chinese: 联想; pinyin: Liánxiǎng), is a Chinese[7] multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, business solutions, and related services. Products manufactured by Grosir Laptop Lenovo Medan the company include desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers, smartphones, workstations, Harga Laptop Lenovo Medan servers, supercomputers, electronic storage devices, IT management software, and smart televisions. Its best-known brands include IBM’s ThinkPad business line of laptop computers, the IdeaPad, Yoga, and Legion consumer lines of laptop computers, and the IdeaCentre and ThinkCentre lines of desktop computers. As of January 2021, Lenovo is the world’s largest personal computer vendor by unit sales.[8]
Lenovo was founded in Beijing on 1 November 1984 as Legend by a team of engineers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Initially specializing in televisions, the company migrated towards manufacturing and marketing 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 from 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.[9]
Lenovo has operations in over 60 countries and sells its products in around 180 countries.[citation needed] The main headquarters was located in Hong Kong,[1] while the dunia headquarters is located in Beijing, China,[dua][tiga] and its operational headquarters is in Morrisville, North Carolina, US. It has research centers in Beijing, Chengdu, Yamato (Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan), Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Morrisville (North Carolina, US),[4] and also has Lenovo NEC Holdings, a joint venture with NEC that produces personal computers for the Japanese market. IBM’s Think-line systems are exclusively developed in Yamato and in Morrisville.History[edit]1984–1993: Founding and early history[edit]
Liu Chuanzhi, along with a class of ten experienced engineers, officially founded Lenovo in Beijing on November 1, 1984, with 200,000 yuan.[10][11] The Chinese government approved Lenovo’s incorporation on the same day. Jia Xufu (贾续福), one of the founders of Lenovo, indicated that the first meeting in preparation for starting the company was held on October 17 the same year. Eleven people, the entirety of the initial staff, attended. Each of the founders was a member of the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The 200,000 yuan used as start-up capital was approved by Zeng Maochao (曾茂朝). The name for the company agreed upon at this meeting was the Chinese Academy of Sciences Computer Technology Research Institute New Technology Development Company.[10]
The organizational structure of the company was established in 1985 after the Chinese New Year. It included a technology, engineering, administrative, and office departments.[10] The class first attempted to import televisions but failed. It rebuilt itself as a company doing quality checks on computers. It also tried and failed to market a digital watch.[12]
In May 1988, Lenovo placed its first recruitment advertisement on the front page of the China Youth News. Such ads were quite rare in China at the time. Out of the 500 respondents, 280 were selected to take a written employment exam. 120 of these candidates were interviewed in person. Although interviewers initially only had authority to hire 16 people, 58 were given offers. The new staff included 18 people with graduate degrees, 37 with undergraduate degrees, and three students with no university-level education. Their average age was 26. Yang Yuanqing, the current chairman and CEO of Lenovo, was among that class.[10]
Liu Chuanzhi received government permission to form a subsidiary in Hong Kong and to move there along with five other employees. Liu’s father, already in Hong Kong, furthered his son’s ambitions through mentoring and facilitating loans. Liu moved to Hong Kong in 1988. To save money during this period, Liu and his co-workers walked instead of taking public transportation. To keep up appearances, they rented hotel rooms for meetings.[10]
In 1990, Lenovo started to manufacture and market computers using its own merk name.[12] Some of the company’s early successes included the KT8920 mainframe computer.[10] It also developed a Toko Laptop Lenovo Medan circuit board that allowed IBM-compatible personal computers to process Chinese characters.[12]1994–1998: IPO, second offerings and bond sales[edit]
Lenovo (known at the time as Legend) Distributor Laptop Lenovo Medan became publicly traded after a 1994 Hong Kong IPO that raised nearly US$30 million[13] at HK$1.33 per share.[14] Prior to the IPO, many analysts were optimistic about Lenovo. On its first day of trading, the company’s stock price hit a high of HK$dua.07 and closed at HK$2.00 suggesting an initial under-valuing of the company. 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 Jual Laptop Lenovo working capital.[10]
By 1996, Lenovo was the market leader in China and began selling its own laptop.[13] By 1998 it held 43 percent of the domestic computer market share in China, selling approximately one million computers.[13]
Lenovo released its Tianxi (天禧) computer in 1998. Designed to make it easy for inexperienced Chinese consumers to use computers and access the internet, one of its most important features was a button that instantly connected users to the internet and opened the Web browser. It was co-branded with China Telecom and it was bundled with one year of Internet service. The Tianxi was released in 1998. It was the result of two years of research and development. It had a pastel-colored, shell-shaped case and a seven-port USB hub under its screen. As of 2000, the Tianxi was the best-selling computer in Chinese history. It sold more than 1,000,000 units in 2000 alone.[15]1999–2010: IBM purchase and sale of smartphone division[edit]
The ThinkPad logo, as seen on the ThinkPad X100e laptop computer. Lenovo purchased the ThinkPad line from IBM in 2005.
To fund its continued growth, Lenovo issued a secondary offering of 50 million shares on the Hong Kong market in March 2000 and raised about US$212 million.[10] It rebranded to the name Lenovo in 2003 and began making acquisitions to expand the company.[13]
Lenovo acquired IBM’s personal computer business in 2005, including the ThinkPad laptop and tablet lines.[16] Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s personal computer division accelerated access to foreign markets while improving both Lenovo’s branding and technology.[17] Lenovo paid US$1.25 billion for IBM’s computer business and assumed an additional US$500 million of IBM’s debt. This acquisition made Lenovo the third-largest computer maker worldwide by volume.[18]Lenovo’s purchase of the Think line from IBM also led to the creation of the IBM/Lenovo partnership which works together in the creation of Think-line of products sold by Lenovo
About the purchase of IBM’s personal computer division, Liu Chuanzhi said in 2012: “We benefited in three ways from the IBM acquisition. We got the ThinkPad merk, IBM’s more advanced PC manufacturing technology and the company’s international resources, such as its dunia sales channels and operation teams. These three elements have shored up our sales revenue in the past several years.”[18] The employees of the division, including those who developed ThinkPad laptops and Think Centre desktops, became employees of Lenovo.
Despite Lenovo acquiring the “Think” merk from IBM, IBM still plays a key indirect, background role in the design and production of the Think line of products. IBM today 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.[19]
IBM also acquired a 50% share of Lenovo in 2005 as part of Lenovo’s purchase of IBM’s personal computing division.[20]