Shares in China's Lenovo Group rose on Monday after an influential Chinese magazine said the world's No. 4 personal computer maker is expected to announce a restructuring plan on Jan 8 that will include layoffs and changes in its top management.

But Lenovo's earnings are expected to come under pressure in the near term after the impending restructuring as information technology hardware vendors record slower growth amid a tougher business environment in 2009, analysts said.

"The fundamentals are not good. We haven't seen any recovery from Lenovo's major market. Growth in the China market has been slowing down since the second quarter," said Joseph Ho, an analyst at Daiwa Securities.

Lenovo plans to lay off 200 employees at its Beijing headquarters as it fights the global economic downturn, Chinese magazine Caijing reported on Friday, citing unidentified sources.

A Lenovo spokeswoman declined to comment.

The global PC industry faces weakening consumer demand and increasing pressure on margins. On Monday, Citigroup downgraded major Taiwan laptop contract makers and PC vendors Asustek, Compal Electronics and Quanta.

"Dell recently also had restructuring moves, including changes in senior management ... and we believe Lenovo might be prompted to do the same due to increasingly difficult market conditions and thus needs to better streamline its organization," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a Monday note.

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Lenovo posted a 78 percent plunge in net profit to $23.44 million for the quarter ended in September, its worst performance since its acquisition of IBM's PC business in 2005.

The company, which has taken various restructuring efforts since mid-2008, is expected to steer clear of any potential acquisitions in the immediate future, analysts said, with the impending internal reorganization expected to weigh on its financial performance in the coming months.

"Lenovo pointed out previously that its poor results in Japan for the Sept '08 quarter was partially due to leadership changes in that market," the Goldman analysts wrote.

Lenovo's head of the Japan market had resigned, due partly to slow business growth in the country, Caijing said, adding that Japan and India were the two main markets Lenovo was focusing on in the Asia-Pacific region.

Last week, China Business News, a Chinese-language business daily, said Lenovo might merge its Greater China and Russia operations with its Asia-Pacific operations.

David Miller, president for the Asia Pacific region, is expected to resign, and Chen Shaopeng, now president of the Greater China region, would head the merged operations, China Business News said.

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