haidian district of beijing native name type public traded as sehk 0992 otc pink lnvgy industry computer hardware electronics founded november 1 1984 ; 31 years ago 1984 11 01 as legend beijing china founder liu chuanzhi headquarters haidian district beijing china morrisville north carolina united states area served worldwide key people yang yuanqing chairman and ceo products smartphones desktops servers notebooks tablet computers netbooks peripherals printers televisions scanners storage devices revenue us 44.91 billion 2016 1 operating income us 61.82 million 2016 1 net income us 128.1 million 2016 1 total assets us 24.93 billion 2016 1 total equity us 3.00 billion 2016 1 number of employees 60 000 2016 2 parent legend holdings subsidiaries motorola mobility 3 zuk mobile website www.lenovo.com lenovo simplified chinese traditional chinese literal meaning lenovo group ltd. transcriptions standard mandarin hanyu pinyin li nxi ng j tu n y uxi ng ngs lenovo group ltd. l n o vo is a chinese multinational technology company with headquarters in beijing china and morrisville north carolina united states . 4 it designs develops manufactures and sells personal computers tablet computers smartphones workstations servers electronic storage devices it management software and smart televisions . in 2015 lenovo was the world s largest personal computer vendor by unit sales . 5 it markets the thinkpad line of notebook computers ideapad line of notebook laptops ideacentre line of desktops yoga line of notebook laptops and the thinkcentre line of desktops . 6 lenovo has operations in more than 60 countries and sells its products in around 160 countries . lenovo s principal facilities are in beijing morrisville and singapore with research centers in beijing morrisville shanghai shenzhen xiamen chengdu nanjing and wuhan in china and yamato in kanagawa prefecture japan . it operates a joint venture with emc lenovoemc which sells network attached storage solutions . it also has a joint venture with nec lenovo nec holdings which produces personal computers for the japanese market . lenovo was founded in beijing in 1984 as legend and was incorporated in hong kong in 1988 . lenovo acquired ibm s personal computer business in 2005 and agreed to acquire its intel based server business in 2014 . lenovo entered the smartphone market in 2012 and as of 2014 is the largest vendor of smartphones in mainland china . in january 2014 lenovo agreed to acquire the mobile phone handset maker motorola mobility from google and in october 2014 the deal was finalized . 7 8 lenovo is listed on the hong kong stock exchange and is a constituent of the hang seng china affiliated corporations index often referred to as red chips . contents 1 name 2 history 2.1 founding and early history 2.2 ipo second offerings and bond sales 2.3 tianxi 2.4 mergers acquisitions and partnerships 2.4.1 ibm 2.4.2 mobile devices 2.4.3 nec 2.4.4 medion 2.4.5 cce 2.4.6 stoneware 2.4.7 lenovoemc 2.4.8 motorola mobility 2.4.9 nok nok labs 2.4.10 nutanix 3 security 3.1 superfish 3.2 lenovo service engine 3.3 lenovo customer feedback program 3.4 lenovo accelerator 3.5 dolby audio x2 engine 4 products and services 4.1 personal and business computing 4.1.1 thinkpad 4.1.2 thinkcentre 4.1.3 thinkserver 4.1.4 thinkstation 4.1.5 thinkvision displays 4.1.6 ideapad 4.1.7 ideacentre 4.2 smartphones 4.3 smart televisions 4.4 wearables 4.5 doit apps 4.5.1 reachit 4.5.2 shareit 4.5.3 writeit 4.5.4 secureit 4.5.5 syncit 4.5.6 snapit camera 4.5.7 seeit gallery 4.6 lenovo connect 5 operations 6 corporate affairs 6.1 financials and market share 6.2 ownership 6.3 corporate culture 6.4 leadership 6.4.1 yang yuanqing 6.4.2 liu chuanzhi 6.4.3 board of directors 7 marketing and sponsorships 7.1 emerging markets 7.1.1 china 7.1.2 india 7.1.3 africa 7.2 united states 7.3 ashton kutcher 7.4 kobe bryant 7.5 olympics 7.6 youtube space lab 7.7 nfl 7.8 the pursuit 7.9 tech world 7.10 goodweird 8 see also 9 references 10 further reading 11 external links name edit lenovo advertisement at the consumer electronics show 2012 former lenovo logo used from 2003 until 2015 lenovo is a portmanteau of le from legend and novo latin ablative for new . the chinese name simplified chinese ; traditional chinese ; pinyin li nxi ng means association as in word association or connected thinking . it can also imply creativity . 9 for the first 20 years of its existence the company s english name was legend in chinese li nxi ng . in 2002 yang yuanqing decided to abandon the legend brand name to expand internationally . legend was already in use by many businesses worldwide whose products and services in the united states for example would include those from both the technological and non technological arenas of industry and commerce 10 making it impossible to register in most jurisdictions . in april 2003 the company publicly announced its new name lenovo with an advertising campaign including huge billboards and primetime television ads . lenovo spent 18 million rmb on an eight week television advertising campaign . the billboards showed the lenovo logo against blue sky with copy that read transcendence depends on how you think . by the end of 2003 lenovo had spent a total of 200 million rmb on rebranding . 11 in 2015 lenovo revealed a new logo at lenovo tech world in beijing with the slogan innovation never stands still chinese . lenovo s new logo created by saatchi new york can be changed by its advertising agencies and sales partners within restrictions to fit the context . it has a lounging e and is surrounded by a box that can be changed to use a relevant scene solid color or photograph . lenovo s chief marketing officer david roman said when we first started looking at it it wasn t about just a change in typography or the look of the logo . we asked if we really are a net driven customer centric company what should the logo look like we came up with the idea of a digital logo first designed to be used on the internet and adaptable to context . 12 history edit founding and early history edit liu chuanzhi founded lenovo in 1984 with a group of ten engineers in beijing with 200 000 yuan . lenovo officially states that it was founded on 1 november 1984 . the chinese government approved lenovo s incorporation on the same day . ji x f one of the founders of lenovo indicates the first meeting in preparation for starting the company was held on 17 october of the same year . eleven people the entirety of the initial staff attended . each of the founders was a middle aged member of the institute of computing technology attached to the chinese academy of sciences . the 200 000 yuan used as start up capital was approved by z ng m och o . the name for the company agreed upon at this meeting was the chinese academy of sciences computer technology research institute new technology development company . 11 their first significant effort an attempt to import televisions failed . the group rebuilt itself within a year by conducting quality checks on computers for new buyers . lenovo soon started developing a circuit board that would allow ibm compatible personal computers to process chinese characters . this product was lenovo s first major success . lenovo also tried and failed to market a digital watch . liu said our management team often differed on which commercial road to travel . this led to big discussions especially between the engineering chief and myself . he felt that if the quality of the product was good then it would sell itself . but i knew this was not true that marketing and other factors were part of the eventual success of a product . the fact that its staff had little business experience compounded lenovo s early difficulties . we were mainly scientists and didn t understand the market liu said . we just learned by trial and error which was very interesting but also very dangerous said liu . in 1990 lenovo started to manufacture and market computers using its own brand name . 13 in may 1988 lenovo placed its first recruitment advertisement . the ad was placed on the front page of the china youth news . such ads were quite rare in china then . out of the 500 respondents 280 were selected to take a written employment exam . 120 of these candidates were interviewed in person . although interviewers initially only had authority to hire 16 people 58 were given offers . the new staff included 18 people with graduate degrees 37 with undergraduate degrees and three students with no university level education . their average age was 26 . yang yuanqing the current ceo of lenovo was among that group . 11 liu chuanzhi received government permission to form a subsidiary in hong kong and to move there along with five other employees . liu s father already in hong kong furthered his son s ambitions through mentoring and facilitating loans . liu moved to hong kong in 1988 . to save money during this period liu and his co workers walked instead of taking public transportation . to keep up appearances they rented hotel rooms for meetings . 11 ipo second offerings and bond sales edit lenovo became publicly traded after a 1994 hong kong listing that raised nearly us 30 million . prior to its ipo many analysts were optimistic about lenovo . the company was praised for its good management strong brand recognition and growth potential . analysts also worried about lenovo s profitability . lenovo s ipo was massively over subscribed . on its first day of trading the company s stock price hit a high of hk 2.07 and closed at hk 2.00 . proceeds from the offering were used to finance sales offices in europe north america and australia to expand and improve production and research and development and to increase working capital . 11 when lenovo was first listed its managers thought the only purpose of going public was to raise capital . they had little understanding of the rules and responsibilities that went along with running a public company . before lenovo conducted its first secondary offering in 1997 liu proudly announced the company s intent to mainland newspapers only to have its stock halted for two days by regulators to punish his statement . this occurred several times until liu learned that he had to choose his words carefully in public . the first time liu traveled to europe on a roadshow to discuss his company s stock he was shocked by the skeptical questions he was subjected to and felt offended . liu later came to understand that he was accountable to shareholders . he said before i only had one boss but cas never asked me anything . i relied on my own initiative to do things . we began to think about issues of credibility . legend began to learn how to become a truly international company . 11 to fund its continued growth lenovo issued a secondary offering of 50 million shares on the hong kong market in march 2000 and raised about us 212 million . 11 mary ma lenovo s chief financial officer from 1990 to 2007 was in charge of investor relations . under her leadership lenovo successfully integrated western style accountability into its corporate culture . lenovo s emphasis on transparency earned it a reputation for the best corporate governance among mainland chinese firms . all major issues regarding its board management major share transfers and mergers and acquisitions were fairly and accurately reported . while hong kong listed firms were only required to issue financial reports twice per year lenovo followed the international norm of issuing quarterly reports . lenovo created an audit committee and a compensation committee with non management directors . the company started roadshows twice per year to meet institutional investors . ma organized