ROS - Return on Sales (Profit Margin)

The Average of the industry ROS was 5.18% for 2004, 4.41% for 2005, and 7.20% for 2006. The chart showed that ROS has been declined from 2004 to 2005, and went up from 2005 to 2006. The major company to bring down the ROS for the industry in 2005 was Lenovo. After it acquired IBM PC division, its sales went up a lot, but it did not working well on its costs. ROS dropped a lot from 4.97% to 0.17% from 2004 to 2005 after the acquisition of IBM PC division. The main reason for fast declining ROS should be suffering from interest expense after the large amount of debt raised for acquire the IBM PC division. Also, The ROS for Lenovo has been lower than industry average for every year leads us to think about the costs as major issue to deal for Lenovo. ((See exhibit ratios)