Lenovo Group Ltd., China's biggest personal computer maker by shipments, said Thursday it turned around to a first-quarter net profit from a net loss a year earlier, as an increase in PC shipments offset lower profit margins as the company focuses on lower-priced consumer products.

Net profit for the three months ended June 30 was $54.86 million, compared with a net loss of $16.01 million a year earlier.

Sales jumped 50 percent to $5.15 billion as Lenovo followed Hewlett-Packard Co. and Acer Inc. in making more low-priced products to win customers in emerging markets. That eroded earnings from its premium Thinkpad laptop range, while the company spent more on marketing to raise mobile-phone sales as competition intensified in the computer market.

“The company is giving up a bit of its short-term profitability to acquire market share,” Steven Zhang, who rates Lenovo shares “fully valued” at DBS Vickers Ltd. in Hong Kong, said before the announcement.

Lenovo announced that it is positive about the global PC market outlook and that it requires demand from corporate replacement of old computers in mature markets to gradually improve toward the end of the year.

But Lenovo also said its gross margin would remain under pressure in the short term due to its business mix shift toward emerging markets and toward products for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. Gross margin in the quarter declined to 10.2% from 11.0% a year earlier.

Research and development spending rose 56 percent last quarter, Lenovo said. The company started selling its LePhone smartphone in China in May.

Lenovo, which bought International Business Machines Corp.'s personal computer business in 2005, is the world's fourth-biggest PC maker by shipments behind Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Acer Inc.