Former Acer president Gianfranco Lanci's decision to join Lenovo is expected to bring about an even faster and larger reshuffling of the global PC market brand rankings, according to Digitimes Research senior analyst Joanne Chien.

Benefiting from its strong advantage in the China market, recent acquisitions of PC brands in Europe, and its competitors' mistakes, Lenovo should be able to stay firmly in the position of the second-largest PC brand vendor in 2011, and with assistance from Lanci, who has strong experience in brand and sales operations, the company is expected to achieve even better performance in the future, Chien noted.

In fact, for Lenovo to become the largest PC brand vendor worldwide, the notebook markets in Europe and the US are the two major regions that the company will need to put more focus on, since the company is only positioned around sixth or seventh largest in the two markets. Even if the company is able to become the largest brand vendor without achieving strong performance in those two markets, the company would still be unable to maintain its position firmly, while profitability would also be impacted.

Since the top-two notebook brands in Europe – Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Acer – are both facing operational issues which could result in a break down in the market's current distribution, which is weighted strongly towards the top two, Lenovo could benefit by gaining market share in Europe. If Lanci's assistance gains Lenovo a strong market share in Europe, Lenovo's hopes of becoming the largest brand vendor may be realized even sooner, while the company's revenues from PC business should also surpass US$30 billion by 2013, allowing the company to compete against US brand vendors on an even ground.