Sales of wireless devices rose by a staggering 105 percent in the three months to the end of June, driving a 23-percent surge in profit to $173.9 million (131.1 million euros), Lenovo reported Thursday.

The company had been declared the world's number-one computer maker by research firms Gartner and IDC, thus toppling long-standing champion Hewlett-Packard from the top spot.

Lenovo's quarterly figures showed that the Chinese company had quickly responded to the rapid consumer shift to mobile devices, away from conventional desktop PCs.

Outperforming its Asian rivals

"We actually sold more smartphones and tablets than PCs in this quarter for the first time ever," Chief Financial Officer Wong Wai Ming told reporters in a conference call.

Lenovo said it was eying to sell 50 million smartphones and 10 million tablets throughout the current fiscal year, adding it was confident to reach that target after Thursday's figures demonstrating the firm's strong performance.

Barclays analysts said they were impressed with Lenovo's results. "It's the only Asia PC company that's able to deliver market expectation results despite strong headwinds from concerns about global demand as well as a slowdown of China's economy," they said in a statement.

hg/msh (AP, dpa)