After two companies merge, they will become one company, but will have the resources of two companies and a larger customer base. Therefore, the new combined company has the ability to expand its market share and improve its market power. Before Lenovo purchased IBM's PC business, Lenovo was only the ninth largest PC vendor in the world, with only 2% of the global PC market share (first three quarters of 2004, market share world of PCs, based on shipping units according to Gartner). After 2004, when the merger deal was completed, Lenovo became the third largest PC manufacturer in the world, with 6.8% global market share (2005 global PC market share, Gartner data). Today, Lenovo has become the largest PC manufacturer, occupying nearly 21.4% of the global market share (IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, January 12,