Lenovo reported its third straight quarterly loss on Thursday but gave a cautiously optimistic outlook for the first time in a year.

The Hong Kong-listed company had a net loss of $16m in its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, compared with a $110.5m net profit a year earlier and narrower than a $264m net loss in the three months ended March 31. Sales dropped 17.9 per cent year-on-year to $3.46bn on continued weakness in computer demand, the world's fourth-largest PC vendor said.

Lenovo is one of the hardest-hit among global PC makers due to its strong reliance on the corporate market, the segment which has suffered most from the financial crisis. After acquiring the PC arm of IBM in 2005, high-end computers sold to large enterprises have made up the bulk of its revenues.