Lenovo Group Ltd will invest 5 billion yuan (US$792 million) to build a manufacturing and research center in central China's Wuhan as it targets the booming mobile Internet device market, the world's No. 2 personal computer maker said yesterday.

The plant in the capital city of Hubei Province is expected to generate output worth 10 billion yuan by 2014 and it will rise to 50 billion yuan within five years, Lenovo said yesterday. The plant, set to open next year, will create 10,000 jobs.

The slower growth in the PC business has prompted Lenovo to adopt a strategy called PC Plus to focus on the booming sales of mobile Internet devices, including smartphones and tablet computers, Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing said yesterday in Wuhan.

This switch will also help the country's biggest PC maker to compete with overseas rivals such as Apple and Samsung, which now dominate China's high-end mobile Internet device market, industry insiders said.

Lenovo's LePhone and LePad tablet compete with Apple's iPad and iPhone.