MORRISVILLE – Lenovo on Wednesday confirmed that it has laid off several hundred workers across the global company in response to a media inquiry from WRAL TV and WRAL TechWire.

“Lenovo took a global resource action [Tuesday] impacting approximately 500 positions,” said Ashley Kusowski, head of public relations for Lenovo’s Triangle-based Data Center Group.

Kuswoski responded via email to an inquiry about layoffs in the Data Center Group that sources told WRAL and WRAL TechWire layoffs hit 20 percent of that business unit, or some 200 people, in RTP and elsewhere. That story was first reported early Wednesday.

While confirming some cuts in the Triangle, Kusowski declined to disclose more specifics.

“Positions across business units, functions, and geographies are impacted including the Data Center Group and Morrisville, NC,” she wrote.

“We don’t break out numbers by office location, business unit, or function.”

Morrisville is one of Lenovo’s two global headquarters. The other is located in Beijing.

The layoffs came just days after Lenovo reported a record year for revenues, topping $50 billion for the first time, and also returning to profitability.

The Data Center Group built around IBM’s former x86 server business and the Motorola smart phone business – both acquired in 2014 – were cited as reasons for Lenovo’s growth.

Kusowski said the cuts were part of the rebooting of Lenovo over 2018 and 2019 as part of CEO and Char Yang Yuanqing’s “Intelligent Transformation” strategy.

“While these actions aren’t easy, they are necessary as we continue to execute our strategy for Intelligent Transformation while achieving sustainable, profitable growth,” she said.

“We continue to take actions that drive the long-term health of the business. Unfortunately, this means making cuts in certain areas of the business while investing in others, adding new employees with the necessary skills to fuel our future growth. Lenovo will continue to make adjustments as needed as part of our ongoing management of the business.”

Lenovo’s headcount remains well above 50,000, Kusowski added.

“With this action, we now have approximately 5,000 employees in the U.S. and 57,000 global,” she said.