Lenovo renamed itself because too many companies were already called Legend
For its first two decades, the Chinese computer maker now called Lenovo went by Legend in English. When it tried to expand abroad, it found the name already taken by businesses all over the world and impossible to register. So in 2003 it coined a new word, blending Le from Legend with novo, Latin for new.
The company began on 1 November 1984 in Beijing, when Liu Chuanzhi and ten fellow engineers from a Chinese Academy of Sciences computing institute pooled 200,000 yuan of approved start-up money. Early ventures flopped: importing televisions failed, and so did a digital watch. Checking the quality of computers kept it afloat. When Liu set up an arm in Hong Kong in 1987, staff saved money by walking instead of taking transport, yet rented hotel rooms for meetings to look respectable.
Its breakthrough was technical. It built a circuit board that let IBM-compatible PCs handle Chinese characters, then began selling computers under its own name in 1990. A Hong Kong listing in 1994 raised almost 30 million dollars. By 1998 it held 43 percent of China's computer market. That year's Tianxi model, a pastel, shell-shaped machine with a single button that connected users straight to the internet, sold over a million units in 2000 alone and became China's best-selling computer.
The Chinese name, Lianxiang, means association of ideas; it was first used for a 1950s Chinese typewriter layout grouping common words and phrases. The rebranding cost 200 million yuan by the end of 2003, including billboards asserting that transcendence depends on how you think. Then came the leap: in 2005 Lenovo paid 1.25 billion dollars for IBM's personal computer division, taking on ThinkPad, IBM's manufacturing know-how and its global sales network, and becoming the third-biggest PC maker by volume.
Not every decision aged well. Lenovo sold its phone and tablet unit in 2008 for 100 million dollars to focus on PCs, then paid double that to buy it back the following year. It later bought Motorola's phone business. Since 2013 it has sold more personal computers than any other company, a lead it still held in 2024.
Source: Lenovo
