In the keynote speech at the opening meeting of Lenovo Group's fiscal year, company chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing's favorite phrase was "PC plus", a term the world's second-largest computer maker coined last year on the same occasion.

However, this time, PC Plus seemed to be more important and urgent, as Yang said it 20 times plus in his speech to more than 3,000 employees in Raleigh, North Carolina on April 10.

Despite the record revenue in the latest quarter ending on Dec 31, and 13 quarters of continued growth in the PC market, the frequent use of the catchphrase only highlighted Lenovo's anxiety in a challenging industry.

Technology research company International Data Corp's statistics showed the global PC shipment was 76.3 million units in the first quarter, 14 percent lower year-on-year. It was the fourth drop in succession and the sharpest quarter fall in 20 years.

Lenovo managed to grow by 0.1 percent in the quarter, the only one among the top five PC companies to grow. The No 1 player HP's shipment fell by 23.6 percent and its market share was 14.8 percent, now only 0.1 percentage points ahead of Lenovo. Dell Inc, the third-largest in the market, saw its shipment drop by 11.2 percent.

With the PC Plus strategy, Lenovo hopes it becomes a provider of smart interconnected devices: PC, smartphones, tablets and smart TV.

Thirty-two years after the birth of personal computers, consumers do not just want a computing device and many do not care how many cores the microprocessors have or what operating systems the computer is running on. People want smart, connected and entertaining devices.

Thus, the shipments of smartphones and tablets, including Apple's iPhone and iPad, Amazon's Kindle, and Samsung's Galaxy, have been growing exponentially, and new devices such as Google Glass have won widespread expectation.

At the same time, traditional technology giants including Intel, Microsoft, HP, and Dell have been facing huge challenges from the market and investors, because they've been slow to foresee and adapt to the changes. Lenovo is not immune to this change.

Yang said what he thinks about and worries about most now is the PC Plus strategy. "It is a general direction," he said. "For us, the most important thing is to change now and innovate our products and business models."

Yang believes Lenovo still has a large potential to grow in smartphones and tablets and said his company will launch "more competitive" models in the second half of the year, with some breaking the traditional mindset in functions and appearances.

The company has set a goal to beat Samsung in China's smartphone market in two years, after selling 30 million such phones in the country last year and becoming the second-largest player after the Korean company.

While Lenovo is mainly active in the phone markets in China and some Asian markets, the company said it will expand into 15 more emerging countries this year. The plan for next year is to sell smartphones in mature markets, especially the US, where Apple and Samsung are competing intensely.

In preparation, Lenovo has started to place advertisements in National Football League matches to build awareness among consumers, Gerry Smith, Lenovo senior vice-president and president of Lenovo Americas, was quoted by the Chinese news portal 163.com as saying.

However, the transition can be difficult for Lenovo. IDC said in February that Lenovo was the third-largest player of the smart-connected devices market, a term the research firm invented to include PC, tablet and smartphones.

However, Lenovo was well behind the leading two players, Apple and Samsung. Despite an increasing market share, it still has to bring a product to the market that can be a trend-setter in function or design. Brand awareness outside China is still quite low.

Contact the writer at liubaijia@chinadailyusa.com