Lenovo Aims To Beat Dell In PCs By Year End

China's Lenovo Group Ltd expects to surpass Dell to become the second largest seller of personal computers in the world by the end of the year, company Chairman Liu Chuanzhi said on Friday.

The world's No.3 PC brand has seen strong sales in China and other emerging markets.

Lenovo, which last month reported earnings that topped analysts' forecasts, is the most well-known Chinese PC brand. It is trying to grab market share in its mainstay PC business, a sector whose growth has been stunted by smartphones and tablet computers.

"With our own rapid growth, combined with the successful execution of our joint venture in Japan with NEC and our acquisition of Medion in Germany, we fully expect to be No. 2 in worldwide PCs this year," Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang said in a statement. "Even as we invest in new areas like tablets and mobile Internet, we see great opportunity in PCs around the world."

Yang's comments comes as HP is looking to spin off its PC group as it restructures its operations, and Dell is affected by slowing public sector spending.

Lenovo, which saw its global market share rise to 12.2 percent in April-June from 9.9 percent in the first three months of 2011, has said it was open to further global acquisitions after buying Germany's Medion AG in June.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta, editing by Bernard Orr)