Chinese computer and smart device maker Lenovo has grown its PC shipments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) by 33.3% during the fourth quarter.

“EMEA achieved a 15.8% market share, increasing shipments 4 share points year-over-year or a nearly 34 point premium to the market,” says the company in a press statement regarding its EMEA business.

“The region had consolidated sales in the fourth quarter of $2.6 billion, a year-over-year improvement of 39%, good for 27% of Lenovo’s total worldwide sales.

“Operating profit margin was healthy at 2.9%, 1.0 point increase year-over-year,” adds the company.

Growth for the company in EMEA has come after Lenovo also launched its smartphone range in Nigeria earlier this year. Nigeria is Africa’s biggest mobile market with over 100 million connections in the country.

Worldwide, Lenovo says it has stretched its leadership as the world’s number one PC maker.

“Lenovo expanded its number one position in PCs, adding 2.1 points of market share to post a record 17.7% total share for the full-year, representing five percent year-over-year growth, compared to an overall industry decline of 8% during this same period,” says the company in its statement.

In terms of its other summarised results, the company says it shipped 55 million PCs, 50 million smartphones and 9.2 million tablets.

Global revenue for Lenovo topped $38.7 billion, up 14% from the year before, while the company’s full year pre tax income has soared 27% to $1.01 billion.

But Lenovo's rise comes amid a depressed worldwide PC market.

"Worldwide PC shipments fell by -9.8% in 2013, slightly better than a projected decline of -10.1%, but still the most severe contraction on record," according to a note from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker written in March this year.

"Fourth quarter results were slightly better than expected, but the outlook for emerging markets has deteriorated as competition from other devices and economic pressures mount.

"In mature regions, the fourth quarter was also slightly ahead of expectations, although the improvement seems driven by short-term factors like a slight rise in XP replacements and is not expected to last long. Overall growth projections for 2014 were lowered by just over 2%, and subsequent years were lowered by less than 1%. However, the changes are enough to keep long-term growth just below zero, and push volumes below 300 million throughout the forecast rather than staying slightly above this level," said the IDC.