Lenovo, which passed Dell to become the second-largest PC vendor in the world by shipments and has designs on HP's first place, saw its earnings soar 88% in the September quarter on the back of acquisitions and sales to emerging markets like its native China.

It realized a better-than-expected $143.9 million on revenues up 35% to $7.79 billion from $5.76 billion.

It means to expand via acquisitions if it can find them and said "Uncertainties over global economic recovery, the renewed debt crisis in Europe, and tablet PC cannibalization of entry-level consumer PCs remain." It's currently scrounging for disk drives in the wake of the Thai floods.

It recently bought the German PC maker Medion for cash and stock worth about $640 million and set up a joint venture with NEC to sell laptops in Japan.

Separately the Chinese company, which acquired IBM's PC unit in 2005, said its CEO Yang Yuanqing would also be chairman when Lenovo co-founder Liu Chuanzhi resigns on Thursday, to focus on Lenovo's largest shareholder, Legend Holdings, ahead of a planned IPO in 2014-2016.

Liu returned to the company with the 2009 recession and focused the concern on China, where it is now number one.