Lenovo Posts Worst Revenue Fall In 14 Years As PC Demand Slumps (reuters.com) 47
China's Lenovo reported a 24% revenue decline for the third quarter, its largest revenue fall in 14 years as global demand for electronics slumped, and said it would look to cut spending and make workforce adjustments. Reuters reports: The world's largest maker of personal computers (PCs) said on Friday that total revenue during the October-December quarter was $15.3 billion, down 24% from the same quarter a year earlier. The results trailed an average Refinitiv estimate of $16.39 billion drawn from seven analysts. The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 provided a huge boost in electronic sales for Lenovo and its peers worldwide as many people opted to work remotely and replaced or upgraded their equipment. However, demand has begun to fall and Lenovo's revenue started contracting in the July-September quarter last year.
Lenovo Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing told an analyst call after its earnings that the entire PC and mobile market experienced a "severe downturn" in the last quarter, and the company was looking to reduce expenses and improve efficiency. Lenovo is aiming to reduce its run rate operational expenses by approximately $150 million to achieve a medium-term goal of doubling net margin, its chief financial officer, Wong Wai Ming, added. "This includes overall reduction in operational spending as well as workforce adjustments where necessary and appropriate." he said.
Lenovo Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing told an analyst call after its earnings that the entire PC and mobile market experienced a "severe downturn" in the last quarter, and the company was looking to reduce expenses and improve efficiency. Lenovo is aiming to reduce its run rate operational expenses by approximately $150 million to achieve a medium-term goal of doubling net margin, its chief financial officer, Wong Wai Ming, added. "This includes overall reduction in operational spending as well as workforce adjustments where necessary and appropriate." he said.
Install Linux by default and watch sales SOAR! (Score:3)
...right out the window!
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Are you sure? I've owned 3 Thinkpads, the last one sold under the Lenovo brand. It DID come with Linux installed (by a 3rd party) but the experience was ... meh. The problem was that a few hacks were made to the kernel get the hardware to work, but there were still issues, and the 3rd party never provided any updates. In the end, I wiped and installed Fedora, which at that point had caught up and worked out of the box.
Re:Install Linux by default and watch sales SOAR! (Score:4, Funny)
Eeeeew. Fedora. Yuck.
I thought Fedora used yum.
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Are you sure? I've owned 3 Thinkpads, the last one sold under the Lenovo brand. It DID come with Linux installed (by a 3rd party) but the experience was ... meh. The problem was that a few hacks were made to the kernel get the hardware to work
Obviously Lenovo would address that problem if selling them with Linux.
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this! Bring back the real thinkpad keyboard and thinklight, and I would upgrade from my x220s and x230s.
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Most people want Secure Boot, it massively increases security and blocks virtually all the hard to remove malware that used to essentially run your OS in a VM.
I skipped buying a Thinkpad last year because the models just were not very compelling. The Ryzen ones had good performance and battery life, but poor expandability. Either one NVMe slot and soldered RAM, or one USB4/Thunderbolt port. The Intel ones suffer from Intel's crap architecture, running hot and noisy.
Maybe this year Ryzen machines will get go
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Most people want Secure Boot
Total and utter rubbish. "Most people" don't know what secure boot is or that it even exists, unless it fucks up.
And it provides zero protection against most common threats, which enter via the browser.
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Sadly, what you say has merit. Linux installs are light, they don't need AV security drains the same way. Why would you need to replace laptops so frequently when using Linux outside of gaming? Only MS Teams can help with sales figures!
Re: Install Linux by default and watch sales SOAR! (Score:2)
So ship hardware running Linux, making users less likely to upgrade their hardware, thus lowering computer sales as older computers last longer?
That is called cutting your own throat.
The current market has people installing FREE Windows 11 on hardware they bought 3-4 years ago, and it runs fine - you don't need 4/8 3 GHz cores and 16 Gigs of RAM to have an enjoyable experience running Win11. That free OS upgrade extended the life of countless desktops and laptops, reducing demand for new systems.
The average
Re: Install Linux by default and watch sales SOAR! (Score:2)
OMG, are you serious?
Linux is free (as in beer) and the percentage of desktop/laptop users running Linux is a rounding error in the desktop market share reports.
As has been previously proven, laptops/desktops that ship with windows are cheaper than the same hardware running Linux - yes, in some cases there is a windows license fee (and sometimes there isn't, based on computer specs - low-end systems are eligible for free licenses), but the license fee, if any, is typically offset by MS ad money (for adverti
Wrong Direction (Score:2)
If manufacturers keep moving towards soldered in components that cannot be upgraded, and super thin devices that are difficult to work on without specialized skills, expect this trend to continue. That goes not only for PC lines, but Apple lines as well.
Re: Wrong Direction (Score:1)
Re: Wrong Direction (Score:2)
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It's not commas that cause problems. It's Unicode characters, most noticeably Unicode single quotes.
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Seems like an Apple problem to me
Re: Wrong Direction (Score:2)
Your Grandma isn't the target market for a $3-6k+ Thinkpad.
The problem is, Lenovo's management doesn't seem to grasp that people who'll BUY a $3-6k+ Thinkpad are quite a bit more demanding than your Grandma. The fact that they even consider "thin and light" to be important selling points for models like the P1 and P16 shows how completely out of touch they are with their own core market.
Hardcore Thinkpad buyers will cringe and overlook a lot of design sins for the sake of getting a real Thinkpad keyboard an
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If manufacturers keep moving towards soldered in components that cannot be upgraded
LPDDR DOES NOT exist in a socketed form. SODIMM sockets simply are not good enough electrically. Lenovo has socketed everything that can reasonably be socketed on thin light laptops. RAM isn't one of them because there is no suitable socket. Except for DELL who invented a new, proprietary, socket CAMM specifically for the task that is being standardised by JEDEC this year.
Re: Wrong Direction (Score:2)
Soldered-on components lower product cost and give us the thin devices we prefer.
Shipping a laptop with only 4 Gigs of RAM is limiting the product to only the most price-sensitive consumer, but shipping a laptop with 8 gigs soldered on is likely sufficient for the vast majority of consumers - no need to upgrade. Ditto for storage - putting a user-replaceable SSD in a laptop makes it thicker, less appealing to consumers. Besides, with the availability of cloud storage and streaming services, is there still a
Spyware (Score:2)
decline per segment (server, PC, Mobile) (Score:2)
Would be nice, but neither TFS nor TFA (yes, I read TFA) had it.
Lenovo is not some monolithic entity, they've got Servers (and white label storage to go with it) to offer enterprises, PCs por enterprises and users, and Mobile stuff (tablets and cellphones, both Lenovo Branded and Motorolla branded)
I'd love to know the rate of decline of the different segments, and I guess that many more /.ers do too... Maybe someone will enounter a better link than the Reuters article.
Thanks in advance
Re:decline per segment (server, PC, Mobile) (Score:4, Informative)
Would be nice, but neither TFS nor TFA (yes, I read TFA) had it.
[...]
I'd love to know the rate of decline of the different segments, and I guess that many more /.ers do too... Maybe someone will enounter a better link than the Reuters article.
Thanks in advance
Well, look at that, the register has the info!
TL;DR
The Infrastructure Solutions Group – servers, etc – grew to $2.85 billion from $1.928 billion, and the Solutions and Services Group climbed to $1.836 billion from $1.497 billion.
https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]
Their laptops suck now (Score:2)
I've got a long-in-the-tooth Thinkpad E570 that had been giving me the upgrade itch. The new ones all have non-removable batteries, but I figure that's just progress and I'd have to grin and bear it.
I tried ordering a Gen 2 Thinkpad L15, but even with the upgraded FHD option, the display was just too dim. It also had the worst backlight bleed I've ever seen on an IPS display. I sent it back and tried the next step up - the touchscreen display. This one also had pretty bad backlight bleed, but not as bad
Re:Their laptops suck now (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely, and their customer and warranty service went out of the window the moment Thinkpad brand got sold off by IBM and acquired by Lenovo, too.
I bought a custom-built T15 a year ago. During this year, I had three different technical failures:
- the IPS 4k screen started showing a white strip on the bottom
- the microSD slot would trap the card inside, preventing it from being released
- the HDMI port died
But fear not! I purchased their business-grade extended warranty with the next-day, ON-SITE service. Well.. Each and every time Lenovo would do whatever was in their power to not send an engineer to my house and to have me mail in my laptop (risking further damage in transit, of course) and wait up to 30 days for the repair instead.
- They would first claim that I violated warranty by installing my own NVME hard drive which I didn't because hard drives what they call CRU - Customer Replaceable Units. I had to point them to their own online documentation to prove it.
- Then they would claim they can't send engineers on site due to Covid restrictions, which wasn't true because the pandemic was considered long gone at that point and the government had already removed all restrictions.
- Then they would say that that they can't do anything.
- In response I would say that they legally agreed to an on-site service by selling me an on-site warranty and that they either they fulfil the terms of my warranty or I'll see them in court.
- 20 emails and 2 weeks later, they would agreed to send an engineer to my home... in a month.
This back-and-forth would happen every single time, with every single issue.
Then, I had to argue again because they wanted to install refurbished, god-knows-how-old replacement components in my nearly-brand-new machine.
They full deserve to suffer and even go under in return.
Re: Their laptops suck now (Score:2)
You describe a shift from focusing on corporate customers to retail consumers.
PCs are now overkill for many people (Score:2)
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Many people use the internet on their phones. They use cloud software on their tablets. The days of the expensive laptop are going away for personal use.
I agree, connectivity is now phone based for many.
You don't need a laptop/desktop for entertainment.
Yes, there are crazy gaming rigs, but that is not everyone.
Casual users can live with a phone or a tablet. TV's have built in Apps that are starting to get to a point where a Chromecast or FIre Stick isn't necessary (but still a good idea since the TV will be EOL'D in a few days).
One needs a desktop for education and work, and even that is subjective depending on ones role and available software.
Not surprised (Score:2)
Thinkpad P1 gen5 is a DISGRACE (Score:4, Funny)
Lenovo's sales have plummeted because their current crop of Thinkpads fucking suck.
The Thinkpad P1 gen 5 is allegedly their best and highest-end mobile workstation. It has one goddamn usable m.2 socket. ONE!
What the unholy FUCK was Lenovo thinking?!?
The display is only 16 inches, and the 3840x2400 version can only do 60hz... and not even G-syc/FreeSync.
It thermally throttles under any kind of sustained load.
And this is their BEST, highest-end, and most expensive model. It's a disgrace to their entire once-hallowed name and heritage. Heads need to roll at Lenovo over this travesty.
Market Survey - User acceptance (Score:2)
Re: Market Survey - User acceptance (Score:2)
I refuse to pay for something that has TPM and fingerprint friendly
Uh, dude, your apple computers can identify you with the camera, somehow that's OK, but a fingerprint reader (as exists on countless millions of Apple iPhones) is a problem?
And what is your issue with a TPM chip?
You do realize Apple M1 hardware has a security function that renders them useless when the hardware refurbisher can't unlock the installed account? How is that better than a TPM chip?
https://macdailynews.com/2023/... [macdailynews.com]
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Re: Market Survey - User acceptance (Score:2)
Building upon the example of how "out of touch" Lenovo is with their customer base, their rationale for eliminating additional m.2 ports and 2.5 inch hdd bays was, "few customers ordered laptops with additional storage devices". No fucking DUH! We bought Thinkpads with empty bays, and added additional drives OURSELVES. Eliminating those bays didn't increase sales of higher priced storage options, it just motivated us to look elsewhere (like Dell and Asus).
Lenovo seriously takes its hardcore Thinkpad base fo
Unusable Website, Crap Hardware (Score:1)
I've spent some time considering ThinkPads, and I was even a little excited about the snapdragon X13s, but I can't.. just can't use their website without it crashing in chrome, and the search-ability of their products is lackluster. Like I have issues with Dells filters, and somehow someone else screwed it up even worse.
Then there is their offerings, lackluster at best. I like the ThinkPad form factor, but when it comes to x64 laptops and servers, its Dell hands down.
Too many things soldered in, too many w
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I can't.. just can't use their website without it crashing in chrome, and the search-ability of their products is lackluster.
Ugh, yes. I was looking for information on some of their products and there's no way to search across their entire product line, it's broken up into separate sites. It's easily the worst website for a major PC vendor, even if it works as designed.
Fake sales dont move product (Score:2)
An i5 with 8gb ram and a 256 ssd is not a 2000US computer in any universe but they claim it is
Nomo Lenovo (Score:2)
Gave up on them after 4 laptops in a row died prematurely due to engineering failure for gpu cooling. Meanwhile, also avoiding china as much as possible. Hope Lenovo bites the dust.
Lenovo quality is horrible now (Score:1)
If I were to run Lenovo (Score:2)
I'd focus more of the business and professional end rather than catering to all groups. I'd also focus on reduce and reuse for the components. Also sell more for the repair facilities to leverage.
---details---
I'd simplify the product line, there should only be
T-series (for professional work)
X-series (for travelling work)
G-series (for gaming)
The X-series I would make as thin and portable as possible, but sacrifice customizability. i.e. no user replaceable parts. This would also be the cheapest in the lin
No shit. (Score:1)
China == spying but not for Lenovo? (Score:2)
In a day when there's all kinds of pushback, due to the eavesdropping potential of Chinese-made electronics, why do we not seem to be concerned with Chinese-made Lenovos?
Blegh (Score:2)