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By Laurie ChenBangalore/Beijing — China’s Lenovo Group reported a 43% jump in quarterly revenue on Thursday, beating forecasts to drive shares up as much as 22%, as the world’s largest computer maker rides an AI hardware boom and benefits from a global memory chip shortage.Lenovo’s revenue rose to $26.94bn in the three months ended June 30, beating analyst expectations of $22.3bn, as the consumer electronics hardware giant benefited from AI-driven demand and solid PC sales.It was the group’s highest quarterly revenue growth in the past five years as AI-related revenue grew 60% on the year to $9.3bn, making up 35% of total revenue in its first quarter.‘Long-term profitability’“We accurately anticipated supply shortages and cost increases (of memory chips), and addressed it successfully,” CEO Yang Yuanqing said.He attributed the success to the firm’s scale, resilient global supply chains and diversified memory supply from China, South Korea and the US.“I’m very confident in sustaining this growth momentum and driving long-term profitability,” he said, adding that Lenovo is on track to reach revenue of $100bn this financial year.The company swung to a net loss attributable to shareholders of $609m from a profit of $505m last year, compared with the average analyst estimate of $589m profit, according to data compiled by LSEG.The company said the loss was primarily due to a non-cash fair value loss of $1.7bn arising from the revaluation of warrants issued in 2025.Its AI server pipeline reached $54bn, up 157% quarter on quarter, reflecting demand from hyperscalers, AI cloud and enterprise AI clients, it said in the earnings report.“It’s clear that we are becoming a global AI infrastructure leader as well,” Yang said, adding that he believed Lenovo can maintain its AI-led growth momentum this year.Lenovo’s shares hit an all-time high on Thursday before the results announcement, taking year-to-date gains to 225%.US competitorsUS competitors Dell, Hewlett Packard and Super Micro have been some of Wall Street’s best performers this year but have raised prices 10%- 30% due to soaring costs of NAND and DRAM memory chips.Lenovo’s PC, tablet and smartphone division, which accounted for about 64% of total revenue, reported a 27% year-on-year increase in revenue during the period.Global PC shipments declined 2% year on year in the second quarter of 2026 to 16.6-million units for the first time since the first quarter of 2025 due to memory-driven cost pressures, according to Counterpoint Research.Lenovo retained its market lead in the second quarter, with a market share of 25.6%.“We believe this will still be the trend in the second half of this year,” Yang said in response to the decline in unit shipments, adding that the firm is growing sales of non-PC devices such as tablets.Lenovo has raised PC prices twice this year to mitigate the impact of soaring memory costs.“From a unit point of view, (PC) demand will be constrained, but because every average selling price is going higher or we are shifting to a premier price band, that helps us drive revenue growth.”He said the company was developing more powerful AI-enabled PCs and edge computing devices that can run AI models as global demand increases for personal AI devices.Adjusted net income, which excludes one-off items and non-cash charges, more than doubled to $1.075bn. Research & development expenses jumped 30% year on year, the company said.
