Lex专栏：柳传志经营有方
Hail the returning hero. Liu Chuanzhi, the founder of Lenovo who reassumed the chairmanship in February, has so far talked a good turnround. On Thursday came the first evidence: a return to profit from June to September, after three quarters of losses.
向回归的英雄致敬。联想(Lenovo)创始人柳传志今年2月再度出任董事长，迄今在扭亏为盈战略方面说得头头是道。周四传来了首个证据：连续亏损了三个季度之后，联想在从6月到9月的这个季度恢复盈利。
What got the world's fourth largest PC maker into trouble was its binary structure: an excellent greater China business, with industry-leading market share and operating margins, and a ho-hum international one, vulnerable to last year's collapse in corporate demand. Thanks to vigorous cost-cutting in the US and Europe, the picture is now more nuanced. China – where the market is growing at about 16 per cent a year – remains dominant, accounting for 49 per cent of total revenues, up from 44 six months ago. Developed markets are still iffy, with a year-on-year increase of just 0.4 per cent in total PC sales. But Lenovo's range of entry-level machines is galvanising the new emerging markets division, where shipments were up a tenth.
使全球第四大个人电脑制造商陷入困境的，是其双重结构：一边是出色的大中华区业务，拥有业内领先的市场份额和营业利润率，另一边是表现平平的国际业务，在去年企业需求崩溃面前十分脆弱。经过在美欧大力削减成本，局面已有所扭转。每年增长约16%的中国市场仍占主导地位，占整体收入的49%，高于6个月前的44%。发达国家市场仍不太可靠，个人电脑销售总额同比仅增长0.4%。但联想的低端入门电脑系列，提振了新设立的新兴市场部门的业务，发货量增长了10%。
Plenty of challenges await. Taiwan's Acer tapped strong back-to-school demand with its Mini Notebooks in the third quarter to supplant Dell as the world's number two by sales, behind Hewlett-Packard. According to data tracker IDC, Acer beat the market in almost every region, with worldwide shipments up 26 per cent to Lenovo's 18. And some perspective is needed: the market's consensus forecast of $254m in net income for the year ending March 2011 is about half of what the group achieved in the year to March 2008. Lenovo's enduring valuation premium to HP and Dell – on an average 13 times forward earnings to Lenovo's 31 – seems based almost entirely on its brand and distribution power in China, set to topple the US as the world's largest PC market within five years. If Mr Liu has settled for managing decline in the west, so have investors.
未来还有不少挑战。台湾宏碁(Acer)的迷你笔记本电脑(Mini Notebook)迎合了强劲的开学季节需求，使该公司在第三季度超越戴尔(Dell)，成为按销售额计算的全球第二大电脑制造商，仅次于惠普(Hewlett-Packard)。根据数据提供商IDC的数据，宏碁在几乎所有地区的市场都占了上风，全球发货量增长26%，高于联想的18%。此外还需要具备一些独特视角：市场普遍预测，在截至2011年3月的财年里，联想将实现2.54亿美元的净盈利，仅相当于该集团截至2008年3月财年净盈利的一半左右。联想的股票估值（平均预期市盈率31倍）相对于惠普和戴尔（平均预期市盈率13倍）长期具有溢价，这似乎完全基于联想的品牌和在中国的分销实力。中国有望在5年内超越美国，成为全球最大的个人电脑市场。如果说柳传志已决定将就一下，努力应对西方业务的下滑，可以说投资者也作了这样的决定。
译者/和风
