Lenovo, the IT group, is ramping up efforts to engage young consumers around the world, in recognition of the fact its branding performance must "catch up" with other core business metrics.

The firm, which bought IBM's hardware arm in 2004, leads the Chinese PC category and has rapidly progressed in certain sectors internationally; its ThinkPad devices, for example, have been especially popular with corporate clients.

IDC, the insights provider, also showed in its latest quarterly figures that Lenovo's global PC shipments had reached 12.8million units, a 36.1 percent lift year on year, and thus beating Dell and Acer to take second position behind HP, on 16.7 million units.