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Lenovo sees surge in tablet shipments

The big Chinese device maker reports heady growth in tablets as it gets closer to the 1-million-per-quarter mark.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
Lenovo's Helix tablet can convert to a laptop when it's placed in a dock. Its Intel Ivy Bridge chip allows to achieve PC-like performance.
Lenovo's Helix tablet can convert to a laptop when it's placed in a dock. Its Intel Ivy Bridge chip allows to achieve PC-like performance. Lenovo

Lenovo saw tablet shipments spike in its most recent reported quarter, according to comments today from its top executive.

Along with reporting a record profit during its fiscal third quarter (the fourth calendar quarter of 2012), Lenovo said tablet shipments are on a tear.

The Chinese device maker shipped 800,000 tablets in the quarter ended December 31, "almost an 80 percent year-to-year" growth, said Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO, during the company's earnings conference call.

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"We will continue to have hyper growth in smartphones and tablets," he said. Lenovo shipped 9.4 million phones in the quarter, of which 9 million were smartphones, according to Yuanqing.

The company's overall smartphone/tablet/smart TV business was up 77 percent year over year, as the PC maker makes a consumer shift toward mobile devices.

And Lenovo was upbeat on the corporate enterprise market and Windows 8.

"New technologies like Windows 8, ultrabooks, and convertibles will drive new demand. 2013 will be better than 2012," the CEO said.