Lenovo Group Ltd. today posted encouraging second-quarter financial results thanks to strong demand for personal computers as more people work from home.

The company, which is based in Hong Kong, reported a profit of $2.59 on revenue of $14.5 billion, up 7% from a year ago. It also reported record pretax income of $470 million, up 52% from a year ago. Net income, meanwhile, rose 53%, to $310 million. Analysts had forecast Lenovo to report net income of $224 million.

Lenovo Chief Executive Yuanqing Yang (pictured) said the results reflect the company’s ongoing commitment to meeting the needs of the growing work-, learn- and play-from-home economy that has arisen thanks to COVID-19.

Perhaps the best evidence of that came from Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group, which contains two of its main business groups, the PC and Smart Devices Group and the Mobile Business Group. The PCSD reported revenue of $11.5 billion, growing 8% year over year, enough for Lenovo to claim it now leads the global PC market with 23.6% of worldwide revenue. Meanwhile, the MBG saw its revenue grow by 18% compared to the same period a year ago.

Lenovo’s Data Center Group did well too, with revenue rising 11% from a year ago to $1.48 billion on growth across software-defined infrastructure, storage, software and services. Within that group, Lenovo’s cloud service provider unit also saw revenue rise by 34% in comparison to the year ago period.

Lenovo’s Intelligent Transformation group, which covers “internet of things” devices, infrastructure, software and services, also gained pace during the quarter. Revenue for the business rose 36% year over year, with the software and services category in that group recording $1.2 billion in revenue.

The company said its business outlook for the rest of the year looks positive too. Executives said they expect the strong demand for PCs to continue while the COVID-19 pandemic continues to keep people at home, and that the market will go beyond current analyst forecasts to reach 300 million unit shipments by the end of the year, resulting in growth of about 25 million units compared to 2019.

“All of our core businesses delivered year-on-year growth, while our Software and Services revenue grew to a new record,” Yang said. “As the world continues to adjust to the ‘new normal,’ we are confident in the long-term growth potential of both devices and cloud infrastructure.”

Photo: Exploring Markets/Flickr