By Che Pan and Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, May 22 (Reuters) - Lenovo Group reported a better-than-expected 27% jump in quarterly revenue on Friday, as strong consumer demand for PCs ahead of potential price hikes helped the world's largest computer maker expand its market share.
Lenovo shares surged 15% on Friday and were the biggest percentage gainer in the Hang Seng Index.
The Chinese firm's PC, tablet and smartphone division - its biggest revenue source - reported a 24% increase in revenue in the quarter
that ended in March, the highest quarterly growth rate in five years.
Its strong performance comes after the company warned earlier of pressure on PC shipments as the industry grapples with a memory chip shortage that is getting more severe. It has also raised PC prices to mitigate the impact of soaring memory costs.
"Supply (of memory chips) is in heavy shortage, and the cost is growing faster," Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing told Reuters on Friday, adding that its more diversified supplier base - which includes Chinese producers - helped it manage the impact.
In its prospectus filed earlier this month, China's top memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies identified Lenovo as being among its major customers, as it reported a more than 700% jump in first-quarter revenue due to a surge in memory chip prices.
Memory chip prices doubled in the first quarter alone from the previous period and are forecast to climb up to 63% in the current quarter due to artificial intelligence data centre demand that has impacted supplies for smartphones, laptops and automobiles.
Lenovo said its fiscal fourth-quarter revenue jumped 27% to $21.6 billion, beating analysts' expectations of $18.7 billion, as its PC shipment growth outpaced the overall market by nearly six percentage points, it said.
The group is also accelerating its push into the AI inference market, with its AI server order pipeline reaching $21 billion.
Its infrastructure solutions group, which includes its AI server business, posted 37% revenue growth in the fourth quarter, the fastest among Lenovo's business segments.
Net profit attributable to shareholders jumped 479% to $521 million, beating analysts' expectations for $271 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Global PC shipments rose 3.2% in the first quarter of 2026 to 63.3 million units and Lenovo's shipments jumped 9% to 16.5 million units, giving it a 26% market share, according to Counterpoint Research.
(Reporting by Che Pan and Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Thomas Derpinghaus)
