Chinese Computer Giant Showcases Capitalist Credentials
Yang Yuanqing heads the world’s third-largest maker of personal computers. But few in the United States have ever heard of him -- or his company, for that matter.
Lenovo Group aims to change that. Since the Chinese company bought IBM Corp.’s PC business last year for $1.25 billion, the company has moved quickly to establish itself as a global brand.
To that end, Lenovo signed on as the official computer sponsor of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Lenovo made the acquisition amid a backlash in Congress against Chinese companies trying to purchase American corporations. Chinese oil company CNOOC Ltd. ditched its attempt to buy Unocal Corp. and appliance maker Haier Group ended its effort to join two U.S. firms to acquire Maytag Corp.
Lenovo has moved its global headquarters to Purchase, N.Y., and kept most of its ex-IBM development staff in North Carolina. The company has brought its ThinkPad laptop line to U.S. retail stores and plans to sell Lenovo PCs to small and medium-sized businesses.
Yang, Lenovo’s 42-year-old chairman, was in the U.S. recently while Chinese President Hu Jintao was making an official visit. He spoke with journalists in San Francisco at the annual convention of the Committee of 100, a group of Chinese American business and civic leaders.
Question: How is Lenovo doing in the United States? Do consumers here know the brand?
Answer: I don’t think so. We are a new company, but so far we are satisfied with our performance because we are keeping the business very stable. This is our first target. Maybe for the next step we should consider how to grow. We recruited a new CEO [former Dell Inc. executive William Amelio], and I believe he will lead this group not only for the U.S. market but also the worldwide market.
Q: Do you worry about any stigma associated with being a Chinese company in the minds of American consumers?
A: I’m not worried about the public. I’m a little bit worried about the government. For the past couple of weeks, there have been some articles related to procurement of our PCs by the State Department.
Our company is a 100% market-oriented company. Some people have said we are a state-owned enterprise. It’s 100% not true. In 1984 the Chinese Academy of Sciences only invested $25,000 in our company. The purpose of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to invest in this company was that they wanted to commercialize their research results. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is a pure research entity in China, owned by the government. From this point, you could say we’re different from state-owned enterprises.
Secondly, after this investment, this company is run totally by the founders and management team. The government has never been involved in our daily operation, in important decisions, strategic direction, nomination of the CEO and top executives and financial management. Everything is done by our management team.
The third thing is actually we were the first group Chinese company to be listed in the Hong Kong market, which is a totally free market. We were the first group of Chinese companies to adopt a high standard of corporate governance and diversified shareholder structure to get foreign investors in our company.
Q: How will you enter the U.S. market and gain share?
A: The IBM PC business had some presence in the U.S. But they only cover large enterprise customers, so-called relationship customers. It’s a very limited customer base. So in the future, we will try to keep ThinkPad as a high premier brand to continue to sell to this customer base. In the meantime, we will have the Lenovo brand to cover small and medium businesses and maybe consumers.
Q: Will you sell Lenovo computers to U.S. consumers this year?
A: It will not be so fast. We asked our team in the U.S. to focus on the commercial segment first.
Q: Will you do more deals like the kiosks Lenovo has in Best Buy, where selected models are for sale?
A: So far we haven’t had this thought. We sell to [small and medium business] customers through Best Buy. Right now, we have no consumer product line to be launched in the U.S. The Lenovo 3000 product line is mainly for [that] segment. It’s a good test. I think if we can have success with Best Buy, that can give us a lot of experience.
Q: Are you structured more as a Chinese company or as a Western multinational?
A: Lenovo was one of the first companies that awarded our founders and management shares and gave our employees stock options. So I think these incentives helped our company compete in the market.
Since we acquired the IBM PC business, we became a multinational company. Right now, our shareholder structure is very diversified, so we have the Chinese Academy of Sciences, IBM and some private equity companies as shareholders.
And we have a very international board. On our board, there is no representative of the government, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, whose purpose is not controlling this company but getting a return from the company. Right now, they are very happy -- they only invested 25,000 U.S. dollars, but every year they can get a couple of times that in dividend. So it’s totally capitalist.
Q: Does the direct model work in China?
A: The direct model is good for relationship customers. But especially for small cities in China, if you want to use a direct model, it doesn’t work. For consumers, they want to look and feel the machine. After they feel better, they will decide to buy. Also they want to get the machine immediately after their payment. They cannot wait three days or one week to get the machine. So you have to have inventory in your retail shops.
Q: How big can the Lenovo brand be in the U.S.?
A: Certainly we wish our brand will be among the top-level PC brands. Certainly we have a long way to go.
Q: You’re already No. 3 in the world.
A: It’s only related to scale. Our brand recognition is still weak, especially in the U.S. and mature markets. From one aspect, we should further leverage the IBM brand, the Think brand, to keep our business stable. From other aspects, we should build ourselves a [Lenovo] brand quickly.
Q: Do you feel the center of technology inevitably moves from the U.S. to China?
A: China is actually more a manufacturing-oriented country. But the government has started to pay more attention to innovation. The U.S. government gave a lot of importance to [intellectual property] protection in China, but the fact is the Chinese government started to realize if we cannot protect IP, we cannot have a better environment to encourage innovation.