PC maker Lenovo says profit up 25 percent

(AP) -- Chinese personal computer maker Lenovo said Thursday its quarterly profit rose 25 percent on double-digit sales growth in developing markets.

Net profit for the three months ending Dec. 31 was $100 million, or 98 cents per share, compared with $80 million in the same period of 2009, Lenovo said. Its global sales rose 22 percent to $5.8 billion.

Lenovo said sales in its home China market rose 18 percent over a year earlier to $2.7 billion, while sales in other developing markets increased 34 percent to $1.1 billion. Sales in the United States and Europe rose 22 percent to $2 billion.

"We will invest in building our global brand, driving more product innovation and creating an even more efficient end-to-end business model," said CEO Yang Yuanqing in a statement. "We are confident we can continue to outgrow the market."

Lenovo has expanded aggressively outside China since it became a global competitor by acquiring IBM Corp.'s PC unit in 2005. Lenovo got into mobile Internet last year with the launch of a smart phone and two Web-linked portable computers.

In January, Lenovo and NEC Corp. announced they would combine their PC businesses in Japan in a move that gave the Chinese partner wider access to the Japanese market, where it had only a 5 percent share.

Lenovo is the fourth-largest PC maker and the NEC tie-up might push it above Taiwan's Acer Corp. to third place behind Hewlett Packard Co. and Dell Inc. The company has headquarters in Beijing and in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

Among other emerging markets, Lenovo said quarterly sales in India rose 62 percent and in Latin America by 31.4 percent.

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