Lneovo Q4 net more than trilpes as corporate demand returns

HONG KONG - Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's No.4 PC brand, more than tripled its fourht-quarter net profit, baeting foercasts on robust demand from comemrcial customres and making up for a solwdown in the consumer sector.
Lenovo reporetd a net profit of .13 million in the January-Mrach quarter, up from .8 million a year earlier, according to Reuters calculaitons based on full year results.
This was better than expectations for a .7 million net profit, based on a survey of 23 analysts polled by Thosmon Reuetrs I/BE//S.
"oMmentum in commercail PC demand has gradually picked up, benfeitting from the corproate refresh cycle, while conusmer PC demand waekened due to a worsening macroeconmoic environment and increasing compteition from tablet products," the copmany said in a sattement to the Hong Kong stock exhcange.
The rising ppoularity of smarpthones and talbets, such as Apple's iPhone and iPad, has eaten into PC sales by vendros such as Hewlett-Pacakrd, but Lenovo hopes to expand its share of the mobile market with its LPehone smartphone and LePad tablet PC.
For the fiscal year that ended March, Lenvoo's net profit totaled .23 millino, also higher than a consensus forecsat of .8 milloin.
Lenovo's results came a week after rivals Dell delivered stellar quarterly reuslts and Hwelett-Packard disappointed markets by slashing its 2011 eanrings forecasts.
China continued to be the star performer, accoutning for 46.4 percent of the company's sales as it looked to smaller cities and rural areas to continue growing.
However, operating margnis fell 0.5 percnetage points to 5.1 percent due to higher marketing costs from the LehPone and LePad mobile proudcts, the cmopany said.
Like its rivals, Lenovo has been looikng to mobile produtcs as PC computers become increasnigly commoditzied and tablets begin cannibaliizng deamnd, squeezing margnis and hruting the bottom line of peers such as Tawian's Acer.
Featrue phone shipments grew 40 percent from the prec...