Lenovo CEO Vows to Hit Online Sales Target or Quit

Lenovo CEO Vows to Hit Online Sales Target or Quit

Lenovo’s Yang Yuanqing asked for patience as he tries to get China’s top PC maker growing once more, but for the first time publicly vowed to step down as chairman and CEO if he doesn’t deliver on a critical sales goal, according to Bloomberg.

Yang, who helped grow Lenovo into the world’s largest PC maker but also orchestrated the acquisitions of Motorola and IBM’s low-end server business, is now betting big on artificial intelligence. He wants to plough $1 billion over the next three to four years into research, joining a race with much larger rivals Alibaba and Tencent to crank out the next generation of intelligent, user-aware devices.

Nearer term, he intends to transform the company’s sales online into an e-commerce juggernaut that can bring in 80 billion yuan ($12 billion) of annual revenue within three years. Yang proclaimed to conference attendees that he hoped to do so through JD, China’s second largest online retail service and Alibaba’s closest rival. It’s that last objective he intends to hit, or throw in the towel.

“I don’t want to step down. I’m confident we can achieve that. That’s not something worrying,“ Yang said in an interview Thursday after lifting the lid on a slew of prototype devices at Lenovo World, the company’s annual showcase. Those included a smart speaker housing the “Cava“ digital assistant, a virtual reality headset, and new laptops. “Investors should have more patience. If you want to see the result, it will take time,“ he added.

Yang is now exploring other ways to rejuvenate its core business, including a tie-up with Fujitsu. Lenovo is said to be in talks to merge PC businesses with the Japanese company, but Yang would only say that both companies are working on some sort of a deal, without elaborating. “It’s still in negotiation. If the deal’s fair, we want the deal,“ he said.