Selling PCs (and even Macs) these days may seem like fighting a losing battle, but Chinese manufacturer Lenovo is managing to swim upstream by continuing to expand both its market share and shipment numbers. In the company's third fiscal quarter for 2012/13, sales reached a new high of $9.4 billion, on the back of 14.1 million PCs shipped, resulting in a 15.9 percent share of the global marketplace. The resulting $205 million quarterly profit is a third higher than the company achieved this time last year and a new record quarter.

Traditionally strong in its native China, Lenovo is also managing to export its success to the all-important United States, where the company saw 11 percent growth year-on-year, in a market that fell 7 percent overall. It has now been a remarkable 15 quarters in a row where Lenovo's growth has outpaced the industry overall.

Lenovo's smartphone business has become profitable for the first time

Lenovo's mobile business is also starting to flourish, as the company reports 11 percent of its revenues are now coming in from its Mobile Internet and Digital Home division, which includes smartphones, tablets, and smart TV products. That's another new high, helping the ThinkPad maker diversify away from its PC operations, while its smartphone business has also become profitable for the first time. By pretty much every metric available, Lenovo is outperforming its contemporaries and bucking an industry-wide trend toward shrinking profits and sales.