by Tech Talk | Feb 21, 2023 | Articles
Lenovo Group 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.
The world’s largest maker of PCs said on Friday that total revenue during the October-December quarter was US$15.3-billion, down 24% from the same quarter a year earlier. The results trailed an average Refinitiv estimate of $16.4-billion drawn from seven analysts.
The outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020 provided a huge boost in electronics 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 CEO 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. Wong did not elaborate on whether this would involve layoffs.
Rivals Dell Technologies and HP have announced they will cut staff. Dell said it will cut about 6 650 jobs, or 5% of its global workforce, while HP expects to cut up to 6 000 jobs by the end of fiscal 2025, or about 12% of its global workforce.
Lenovo’s net income attributable to shareholders for the October-December quarter plunged 32% to $437-million. Lenovo shares in Hong Kong slid 3.1% on Friday.
IT research firm Gartner said last month that shipments of PCs and mobile phones were likely to fall for the second consecutive year in 2023. PC shipments are likely to slide 6.8% this year after falling 16% in 2022, Gartner said.
Lenovo said that market was in the process of digesting excessive inventory, which may need one or two more quarters. But Yuan said device activation data showed that real demand was not as bad as it may appear. “From the second half of the year, you will see the PC market resume growth,” he said. — Reuters
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by Tech Talk | Jan 24, 2023 | Articles
Lenovo has unveiled 25 new ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile server and hyperconverged solutions powered by Intel’s 4th Generation Xeon Scalable Processors as part of its recently announced Infrastructure Solutions V3 portfolio.
Designed to help accelerate global IT modernisation for organizations of all sizes, the integrated solutions deliver advanced performance, efficiency and management capabilities specifically optimised for complex workloads, including mission-critical, AI, HPC and containerised applications.
“In today’s competitive business climate, modern infrastructure solutions that generate faster insights and more efficiently enable complex workloads from the edge to the cloud are critical across every major industry,” says Kamran Amini, vice-president and GM: server and storage at Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group. “With the performance and management improvements of the Intel-based ThinkSystem V3 portfolio, customers can reduce their IT footprint by up to three times to achieve greater ROI and more easily transform their infrastructure with one seamless platform designed for today’s AI, virtualisation, multi-cloud and sustainable computing demands.”
The next generation of Lenovo ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile servers and storage with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors feature built-in accelerators that can help achieve more efficient utilisation and power efficiency across the fastest-growing workloads that businesses depend on today.
Additionally, the portfolio provides a unique open architecture with advanced management, superior reliability and extended security to help companies of all sizes work across diverse clouds while leveraging existing IT environments.
The next generation of Lenovo solutions with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors accelerate data networking, AI inference and analytics, delivering improved performance to help businesses better manage, process and analyze the explosive growth of data. As the data demands for today’s businesses exponentially increase, the new high-end ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile V3 servers are designed to more effectively power today’s most demanding workloads across all industries, including in-memory databases, large transactional databases, batch processing, real-time analytics, ERP, CRM, legacy system replacements and virtualised and containerized workloads. The portfolio also enables faster system configuration setup compared to the previous generation with enhanced XClarity Controller (XCC2) software.
Cooled by fifth generation Lenovo Neptune Direct Water- Cooling technology, Lenovo’s new ThinkSystem SD650 V3 and SD650-I V3 servers extend Neptune efficiency to a new generation of systems that enable customers to reduce power consumption up to 40%
Designed with security, scalability and agility in mind, Lenovo’s end-to-end cloud solutions are open, proven and ready to deploy. The new solutions provide pre-configured, pre-validated and cloud-ready systems with built-in lifecycle management to address customers’ most urgent needs. With the new Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions V3 portfolio, businesses can use an agile solution to grow and manage cloud platforms at scale while providing consistent cloud services.
The new Lenovo ThinkAgile V3 HX, MX and VX hyperconverged infrastructure solutions are pre-integrated with an open ecosystem of partners, including Microsoft, Nutanix and VMware software capabilities, and are available via TruScale Infrastructure as a Service.
The Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions V3 portfolio provides enhanced ThinkShield security and IT resiliency through an additional isolation layer of immunity against unauthorised access and malicious attacks.
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by Tech Talk | Nov 22, 2022 | Articles
In a first-of-its-kind initiative within the tech industry, global technology company Lenovo, which is also the world’s largest PC producer, has achieved a significant milestone for the organisation’s CO2 Offset Services.
Lenovo’s customers have offset more than one million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from their purchases of Think PCs, including desktops, workstations and laptops. This is the equivalent of greenhouse gases emitted from more than 215,000 passenger vehicles driven over the course of one year.
The company also announced that enterprises can now add Lenovo CO2 offsets to their purchase of select Lenovo ThinkSystem servers.
Carbon reduction through carbon offsetting
Lenovo Solutions and Services Group Lead in [MEA], Thibault Dousson, explains: “Lenovo subscribes to the end goal of reducing our environmental impact in its totality. As part of this, the company supports carbon reduction through carbon offsetting, which refers to any reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to make up for emissions that occur elsewhere. The Lenovo CO₂ Offset Service offers a simple way to offset CO₂ emissions, allowing customers to link their individual device purchases to the support of different renewable energy initiatives.
“As part of the global Lenovo family, we are extremely pleased that sales of Lenovo desktop computers, workstations and laptops have been able to offset more than 1 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, showing our commitment to this environmental initiative and also how enthusiastically it is being embraced by our customers.”
Through a simple purchase add-on, enterprises and consumers can offset the carbon emissions produced from the manufacture to the shipping of their PC or server, as well as the power consumed over the device’s lifecycle. Working through ClimeCo, a third-party global advisor, the funds are channelled towards UN-approved initiatives, including renewable energy or ecological projects across the world.
Dousson adds: “Carbon offsetting helps environmental projects that cannot secure funding on their own, and it gives businesses increased opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint. Carbon offset credits show that an organisation has reduced its emissions. From the customer’s perspective, one adds the Lenovo CO₂ Offset Service when ordering eligible devices. Once products are shipped, Lenovo reports to its official CO₂Offset partner, which then finalises the transaction and provides confirmation – making it easy to track and confirm which environmental project has been supported by the purchase.”
Looking beyond carbon offsetting
However, carbon offsets are just one element of Lenovo’s approach to sustainable innovation. Lenovo TruScale offers technology equipment and services on a subscription or ‘as-a-service’ basis, minimising waste throughout the value chain. This extends device lifecycles and asset recovery services for environmentally compliant hardware disposal that supports circular economy efforts and curbs waste.
Lenovo has also pioneered notable innovations like the use of low-temperature solder technology in its manufacturing, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions during the production of PCs. In addition, Lenovo integrates recycled plastics into its product manufacturing process, as well as expanding the types of recycled materials that are used in its devices, for example with the inclusion of recycled magnesium.
In support of carbon offsetting initiatives within South Africa
Since its launch in 2021, the take-up rate of Lenovo’s CO2 Offset Services has been on the rise, with the amount of carbon offset by customers increasing by double-digits quarter-on-quarter. This indicates businesses are increasingly on the lookout for IT solutions that address their ESG-related needs and enable them to reduce their environmental footprint.
Dousson notes: “At the end of August this year, the South African government adopted ‘A Framework for a Just Transition’, which is intended to shift South Africa towards a zero-carbon economy in ways that support national development aspirations, social inclusion and the eradication of poverty. The government also reaffirmed its commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which is a target that is essential if the world’s countries are successful in keeping the global temperature rise to within safe levels[1].
“The Lenovo CO₂ Offset Service supports South Africa’s own zero-carbon aspirations at both an individual consumer level as well as from the enterprise perspective, with the recent inclusion of the purchase of select Lenovo ThinkSystem servers as well as individual devices,” he concludes.
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