(Yicai) Aug. 16 -- Shares of China's Lenovo Group fell despite the world's biggest maker of personal computers reporting profit jumped 38 percent in the first fiscal quarter, mainly thanks to opportunities brought by artificial intelligence.

Lenovo [HKG: 0992] closed down 3.4 percent at HKD9.68 (USD1.24) a share in Hong Kong today, after dropping by as much as 5.7 percent in the morning trading session.

Net profit was USD243 million in the three months ended June 30, the Beijing-based firm said in a financial report released yesterday. Its operating revenue jumped 20 percent to USD15.4 billion in the period from a year earlier, the first double-digit growth over the past two and a half years.

Research and development expenses climbed 6 percent due to key AI innovations, Lenovo noted.

The proportion of income from non-personal computers in Lenovo's total revenue rose to a record high of nearly 47 percent in the quarter. Chairman Yang Yuanqing said last year that the firm aims for this ratio to increase to over 50 percent from 41.4 percent in two years.

Lenovo's operating revenue from the intelligent device business, including PCs, tablets, and smartphones, climbed 11.3 percent to CNY82.7 billion (USD11.5 billion). Its core PC business had a global market share of almost 23 percent.

The operating revenue of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group surged 65 percent to CNY22.9 billion in the first fiscal quarter from a year ago, while that of Lenovo's Solutions & Services Group rose 10 percent to CNY13.7 billion.

Lenovo unveiled its AI PC series in April and will launch them using different chips next month, Yang noted. The penetration rate of such products in China's PC market is about 5 percent, with the company hoping that the figure will grow to 10 percent by the end of this year, he added.

The penetration rate of AI PCs in the global PC market will reach 25 percent next year and nearly 50 percent in 2026, Yang pointed out.

Shipments of AI PCs totaled 8.8 million units worldwide from April to June, accounting for 14 percent of all PCs, according to market researcher Canalys.

AI will undoubtedly be weaving into people's lives and work more deeply, Yang previously told Yicai, adding there are many ways to use AI and not all are through large language models.

Editor: Martin Kadiev