Lenovo hires former Acer chief executive to drive European expansion

Gianfranco Lanci charged with helping firm become one of the top three firms in region

Lenovo has hired former Acer chief executive Gianfranco Lanci as its European president, charging him to continue the PC maker's strong growth and expand the company's market share across the region.

Lanci said that he hoped to make Lenovo a top three PC company in Europe and the surrounding territories of the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) by 2013.

"EMEA is a strategically critical market for us. We must maintain our commercial leadership while dramatically expanding our consumer and SMB presence across the region" he said.

"This will help us achieve 10 per cent share in the top 10 countries in EMEA and realise our longer term objective of becoming a top three player in EMEA."

Lanci's hiring comes during a period of growth by Lenovo, which according to recent statistics from the IDC is one of a select number of PC manufacturers to still be expanding, dramatically increasing its market share during 2011.

This compares to other major suppliers like HP and Lanci's former employer Acer, which suffered a loss of market share of 8.8 and 24.4 per cent respectively by 2011's end.

Lanci famously left Acer in March 2011 after a difference of opinion with the company's board of directors over the direction of the company.

"They [Lanci and the board] placed different levels of importance on scale, growth, customer value creation, brand position enhancement, and on resource allocation and methods of implementation," Acer said in a statement at the time.