Lenovo Leaps into Fortune 500 Club

Lenovo has become China’s first non-monopoly private company to be ranked among Fortune Magazine’s top 500 enterprises. Fortune announced Lenovo’s total income to be $16. 788 billion, ranking 499 among the world’s top 500 enterprises. Lenovo declared that entering the world’s top 500 marked a crucial moment for the company’s rapid growth in the global market, and that Lenovo was very proud of it. “As a market-based company since its foundation, Lenovo has experienced important periods, establishing its own brand and becoming globalized.
Joining the world’s top 500 demonstrates the effectiveness of Lenovo’s strategy, and will be regarded as a milestone in the company’s history,” announced a Lenovo spokesperson, adding that right now the company is making preparations for the Beijing Olympic Games which are coming right up. Many Chinese companies dream of becoming big in the world’s markets, symbolized by a 500 listing. Haier was the first domestic non-monopoly consumer company to get near, coming closest when its income was only $200 million below the world’s 500th company.Another Chinese major, Huawei, has just released its financial report for 2007, according to which the company’s annual income was $12. 5 billion, still some distance from the top 500 list. Companies such as Haier, having developed through brutal competition since the 1990s, are most eager for world status, but these companies do not control core technology and the manufacture of upstream components, and are short of a whole globalized strategy.Their development has slowed in recent years.
Midea, another Chinese home appliance maker, aims to increase its annual income to 120 billion yuan by 2010, and perhaps become one of the world’s top 500. For Lenovo, earning a place on the Fortune list has never been a company goal. Chairman Yang Yuanqing said Lenovo values only its own development and its share in the global market, and merely being among the world’s top 500 firms was not of any particular concern.Among domestic home appliance and IT companies, Lenovo has made itself the most likely to reach such heights. Lenovo is China’s most globalized company. In 2004, after having built a strong regional presence, the company in one jump launched into the global market by acquiring IBM’s PC business. During the past four years, Lenovo, which was seen by many at the time as having bitten off too great a chunk, has integrated the business according to its original plan, and broke through during the fiscal year 2007 to 2008.

Yang Yuanqing says Lenovo’s acquisition has succeeded, and the company has entered a new stage. Lenovo will accelerate its development this year. In early 2008, it released its new consumer brand, Idea, and promoted it at the global consumers market. The company’s 2009 income is expected to show significant growth. There is still, however, a wide gap between Lenovo and its massive rivals HP and Dell. HP, with the largest share in the global PC market, has as annual income totaling $104. 9 billion, ranking 41 among the world’s top 500 firms.
But the PC business contributes only a part of HP’s income, so comparison with Lenovo is not really relevant. Dell, however, is a PC company, with an annual income of $61. 1 billion, and ranks 106 among the top 500, four places down from its 2007 ranking. Taiwan-based Acer, which competes with Lenovo for the world’s third largest PC company, did not make this year’s list.