Legend Holdings, the Hong Kong-listed arm of China’s top PC maker, has reported profits in the first quarter to June 30 up 67% year-on-year to HK$80.93m ($10.38m) on revenue up 35.4% to HK$3.4bn ($435.9m). Executive director Mary Ma said Legend sold 254,000 PCs in the quarter of the financial year, up from 150,000 units in the same period last year, and expects sales of more than 1 million for the full year. Legend is also on track to secure a 20% share of the domestic PC market this year, up from 17% last year.
Despite the strong growth, Legend’s gross profit margin was down 1.2% year-on- year to 11.8% both because of a HK$10m ($1.28m) loss in the company’s motherboard business and dropping PC prices. Ma said profit margins will continue to slide as PC prices fall, although a recent restructuring at the motherboard business, including 500 lay-offs, will return the unit to profitability this year. The company’s plans for the rest of the year include spending $40m on research and development and boosting production capacity to 1.5 million units a year.
