LONDON (Financial Times) - Lenovo is the latest major PC company to feel the heat from a shrinking PC market. The biggest computer manufacturer is planning to cut jobs after seeing its net profits fall for the first time in almost three years.
The number of jobs the company intends to cut wasn’t mentioned.
According to Lenovo’s fiscal year Q3 report (PDF), “revenue declined by 24 percent year-on-year to US$15.3 billion.”
The company’s biggest issue is its Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), which includes computers, smartphones, tablets and other hardware. Revenue dropped by 34% and operating profit fell by 37% year-on-year, respectively. The company’s report states that PC sector shipments “regressed to pre-COVID levels” while there was still too much product in the channel, though Lenovo claims IDG still maintained its leadership in market share.
On a conference call with investors, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing and chief financial officer Wong Wai Ming said that the company needs to cut $150 million in costs, which “includes overall reduction in operational spending as well as workforce adjustments where necessary and appropriate,” the Register reports.
If Lenovo moves ahead with layoffs, it wouldn’t be the first in the space. Dell recently announced 6,650 cuts, and HP said it would drop between 4,000 and 6,000 employees over the next three years. In addition, many other tech industry companies have had layoffs, including Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, Coinbase, Amazon and Salesforce.
Lenovo does have some optimism in its results. It says that IDG is still a market leader and the company still has plenty of cash. Lenovo also claims that “the market might stabilize sooner than many expected in 2023,” though the company doesn’t cite reasons to believe that will happen.
In December, analysts at Canalys published a report highlighting a 12% decline in PC shipments in the US in Q3 of 2022. Only Apple and Acer saw annual growth in the US, while Dell, HP, Lenovo and others all fell. If you include tablets, Apple was the number one PC vendor in the country (without it, that honor went to Dell at the time).
“Looking ahead, the U.S. PC market will face further headwinds,” Canalys analyst Brian Lynch said in the report. “Despite the Q4 holiday season, the market will suffer a continued downturn. Cash-strapped consumers will cut spending on expensive technology products. Retailers have ramped up promotions in recent months to make room for new device launches as the holiday season approaches. But overall retail inventories are still growing faster than sales. The education segment will begin a slow recovery in 2023, but the bulk of device refreshes are now likely to occur in 2024.”
Meanwhile, Lenovo and its competitors are still producing new devices, having updated a large swath of their lineups at CES 2023. Despite inflation, fears of a recession and the fact that many people bought new computers in the last few years, all major PC manufacturers face a tough road ahead as they navigate a path back into people’s wallets.