In July, market research firm IDC released preliminary data for the global traditional PC market for the second quarter of 2026. After nine consecutive quarters of growth, global PC shipments turned to year-on-year decline for the first time. Total shipments in the second quarter were 68.2 million units, down 4.9% year-on-year. Tight memory supply and limited availability of key components such as storage, along with macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, have put the entire industry under pressure. In such a quarter, Lenovo Group shipped 16.6 million units and maintained the No. 1 position worldwide with a 24.4% market share. Its share also increased by 0.7 percentage points compared with the same period last year. Not long before that, Gartner released its 2026 Global Supply Chain Top 25. Lenovo ranked fifth globally with an overall score of 5.60— the highest-ranked Chinese company on the list, and also the highest-ranked company in the Asia-Pacific region. The global No. 1 market share and a top-five position in supply chain evaluations—these accolades landed on Lenovo back-to-back.
In a quarter fighting the trend, Lenovo’s PC share rose to 24.4%
IDC’s data shows Lenovo shipped 16.6 million units of traditional PCs worldwide in the second quarter, with a market share of 24.4%. This is up 0.7 percentage points from 23.7% in the same period last year. In the quarters when the overall market continues to decline, Lenovo’s share did not fall—it rose.
Compared with other vendors, this kind of leadership is clearer. In the second quarter, HP shipped 13 million units, and its share fell from 19.9% last year to 19.1%. Dell shipped 9.3 million units, with a share of 13.6%. Vendors other than the top five combined shipped down 10.5% year over year, and their share dropped from 27.3% to 25.7%—market resources are concentrating toward the top. The gap between Lenovo and second-place HP also widened from about 3.8 percentage points in Q2 2025 to about 5.3 percentage points in Q2 2026.
IDC points out a change in its report: in this quarter, the trends for shipment volume and revenue have diverged. Although shipments are falling, manufacturers are raising prices faster than demand is declining, so market revenue is still moving upward. Meanwhile, the penetration rate of AI PCs is slowing in the short term, mainly due to higher costs and the fact that end-side AI tools are not yet strong enough to compete with cloud-based solutions. As a result, PC competition is expanding beyond just hardware parameters to include the supply chain, cost control, and ecosystem capabilities.
Holding on to the foundation of being number one: Lenovo’s supply chain capabilities
Lenovo being able to hold on to the top position in such a quarter is directly related to its own supply chain capabilities. IDC points out that as the market environment worsens, the importance of supply chain management and supply chain capabilities rises. Vendors that are more easily able to secure key components will win market share from competitors. At the same time, leading brands are using the scale of adjacent businesses—such as smartphones and servers—to secure memory supply. What this round of PC competition is about is no longer just product specifications, but who has the more stable supply chain.
The supply chain is precisely where Lenovo is recognized by external authoritative bodies. On Gartner’s 2026 Global Supply Chain Top 25 list, Lenovo ranks fifth globally with an overall score of 5.60. Ahead of it are Western multinational giants such as Schneider Electric and NVIDIA, as well as Walmart. In this long Western-dominated ranking, Lenovo is the highest-ranked Chinese company. Another Chinese company that has made the list for three consecutive years—JD.com—ranks 16th. Lenovo is also the highest-ranked company in the Asia-Pacific region. The scoring of this list takes into account not only cost and efficiency, but also sustainability and ESG performance. According to Lenovo’s FY2026 ESG report, about 90% of the electricity used in its global operations comes from renewable energy.
At Lenovo’s investor day at the end of June, Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing summarized the company’s core capabilities built over many years into two pillars: continuous innovation and excellent operations. “Excellent operations,” as he put it, corresponds to capabilities in global localization operations, the supply chain system, and end-to-end operations.
Lenovo’s supply chain is a network spanning multiple countries and regions. With its own factories plus partner manufacturing, it can serve different markets close to where demand is, and when volatility appears in one place, it can spread risk. It is this system that allows Lenovo to still ensure stable supply of products such as PCs and servers even amid memory shortages and rising costs.
Lenovo servers come with the same supply chain as PCs
IDC’s “adjacent business scale” is very real for Lenovo. In Q1 2026, Lenovo’s x86 server revenue ranked second globally: revenue was $5.62 billion, up 36.5% year over year. It surpassed Supermicro, Inspur, and H3C, and ranked only behind Dell, whose revenue grew 41.2%. Shipments were 231,000 units, up 21.2% year over year—making Lenovo the fastest-growing among the world’s top five vendors. Against the backdrop of the overall x86 server market declining 2.9% in revenue, this 36.5% growth rate is especially solid.
Overseas is the main engine of growth for this business. IDC data shows Lenovo’s overseas x86 server revenue grew 64.9% year over year, with its market share rising to 8.8%. Overseas shipment volume also increased by 39.5%. In the more future-representative AI servers business, Lenovo’s related revenue grew 50% for the full year. With more than 140 billion yuan RMB in order backlog, its infrastructure business recorded a new high in revenue in the fourth fiscal quarter, achieving break-even for the full year.
PCs and servers share the same procurement and supply chain framework. With the combined scale, Lenovo’s bargaining power and ability to ensure supply for key components such as memory and storage are stronger. This is exactly what IDC means: leading manufacturers use the scale of adjacent businesses to secure supply.
Lenovo phones make a push against the trend in the United States and Europe
Smartphones are a part of Lenovo’s globalization that is easy to overlook, yet it’s doing fairly well. Motorola, under Lenovo, saw shipments in the United States grow 18% year over year in Q1 2026. While Apple and Samsung both declined (Apple fell from 20.6 million units to 19.9 million units, and Samsung lost about 5%), and the overall U.S. market declined 3% in that quarter, Motorola was the only vendor among the top five that achieved growth. This is according to Omdia data. The growth is driven by the refreshed Moto G series, not high-end models like clamshell foldable phones.
Europe performed even better. In the same quarter, Motorola grew 17% year over year in Europe, taking the position of the fourth-largest smartphone vendor locally—while Xiaomi fell from 5.3 million units to 4.5 million units in Europe over the same period. Motorola’s presence in Europe used to be average; now it is expanding rapidly in markets including Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy, and has steadily built up its market share.
Looking at the global picture, in 2026 many Chinese Android vendors have seen sluggish growth. Motorola under Lenovo, however, is still one of the few brands that continues to grow shipments. Its product line is also expanding into emerging markets. At the end of June, Motorola shipped the Moto Pad 70 Pro tablet to India, featuring a 13-inch 3.5K display, with an 8GB+256GB version priced at 45,999 rupees (about several thousand yuan RMB). A smartphone brand under a Chinese company that can continue to win market share in mature Western markets where Apple and Samsung have long dominated—that is another front in Lenovo’s globalization, beyond PCs and servers.
From connected vehicles to patents, Lenovo’s globalization is more than just selling hardware
Lenovo’s globalization is not just about selling PCs and servers overseas. By Forbes China’s “Top 30 Multinational Enterprises” definition, Lenovo’s overseas revenue accounts for about 77%. It is the only high-tech manufacturing enterprise selected from the Asia-Pacific region on this list, and overseas markets are the main driver of revenue.
Technology cooperation is another line of effort. At MWC Shanghai at the end of June, Cisco and Lenovo Communications announced that they would establish a global intelligent connected-vehicle strategy partnership, working together to build global connected-vehicle connectivity and platform services for automakers. Cisco’s IoT control center is already connected to more than 121 million connected-vehicle devices and covers over 50 operators. Lenovo Communications’ Zhilian platform has also connected more than 100 million, serving more than 60 automakers. According to its disclosure, about one out of every three exported vehicles is equipped with Lenovo Communications’ connected-vehicle service. Wang Shuai, Senior Vice President of Lenovo Group and CEO of Lenovo Communications, said the cooperation with Cisco will “jointly build a deeply globalized, AI-driven intelligent connectivity service system for enterprises.” In early July, Lenovo Communications also partnered with UAE telecommunications operator e& to expand the footprint of connected-vehicle and IoT services into Gulf countries and more markets.
In mid-June, Lenovo renewed a patent cross-licensing agreement with Nokia. The two companies had signed an agreement back in 2021, and this time they grant each other licenses based on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles. Lenovo’s Chief Intellectual Property Officer said that effective IP licensing helps companies accelerate innovation and bring new products to market more efficiently. These cross-border patent arrangements are also the underlying guarantee for Lenovo to operate smoothly across dozens of countries.
Lenovo has built AI infrastructure into other countries’ national strategies
Lenovo’s globalization is also going deeper—from selling products to building AI and digital infrastructure for other countries. In 2026, Azerbaijan’s first supercomputing center was completed, with Lenovo infrastructure as its foundation: ThinkSystem SR680a V3 servers paired with NVIDIA H200 GPUs, plus DDN storage and NVIDIA 400Gb/s InfiniBand high-speed networking. This system is operated by the local state-owned cloud service provider AzInTelecom, directly serving Azerbaijan’s 2025–2028 national AI strategy. As the CEO of the local operator puts it, Lenovo’s solution “allows us to develop AI projects in our own country without relying on external resources.” This supports the country’s ability to handle data securely domestically, train AI models locally, and even preserve data sovereignty.
Saudi Arabia is another deeper example of this kind of relationship. In June, Lenovo signed a memorandum of understanding with the innovation arm of the Saudi National Housing Company, focusing on collaboration in AI, data science, advanced data centers, and talent development—aligning with the local “Vision 2030.” And this memorandum is only one layer of the parties’ relationship. Alat, a tech manufacturing platform under Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF with nearly a trillion US dollars in scale, had previously invested about $2 billion in Lenovo through convertible bonds. Lenovo, in turn, plans to build finished-device manufacturing plants in Saudi Arabia and localize its capacity. In June 2026, Alat’s proxy CEO, Aldawood—who oversees industrial and mining investments at PIF—formally joined Lenovo’s board of directors. From signing cooperation and bringing in capital to co-building capacity, Lenovo’s linkage with this overseas sovereign fund has already gone deep into the level of corporate governance.
When the industry is down, these rankings for Lenovo move upward instead
Q2 2026 was a real stress test. The overall PC market fell for the first time in nine quarters, while memory shortages, cost increases, and weak demand all hit at the same time. In the first half of this year—an industry under overall pressure—Lenovo held on to the global PC No. 1 position. Its supply chain rose to fifth globally on the Gartner rankings, x86 server revenue reached second globally, and Motorola phones grew in the United States and Europe against the trend. On the financials side, Lenovo’s revenue for the last fiscal year grew by more than 20% year over year, setting a historic high. Adjusted net profit for the full year increased 42%, and the infrastructure business achieved break-even for the full year.
For a company whose revenue comes more than 70% from overseas, every fluctuation in memory pricing, geopolitics, and end-demand will first transmit into Lenovo’s supply chain. IDC estimates that memory shortages may not ease until early 2028, and that the PC market’s growth will slow further in the second half of the year. Lenovo also has to face these challenges. Yet the rankings Lenovo secured in the first half are backed by the same global supply chain—stretching from manufacturing to delivery.
