Computers used to be the “next big thing,” but nowadays they’re like the oldest cousin at a family reunion – young enough to fit in at the kid’s table, but definitely a little removed from younger and faster family members. Indeed, based on sales results from the computing company Lenovo (News - Alert) Group, PCs are falling by the wayside in deference to a newer generation of mobile.

The Lenovo Group recently announced that its sales of tablets, smartphones and wireless devices have overtaken sales of laptops and personal computers (PC). According to data, wireless device sales rose 105 percent in the three months that ended June 30, resulting in profit rising to $174 million; total revenue rose 10 percent to $8.8 billion.

Research group Gartner (News - Alert) has declared Lenovo to be the number-one maker of PCs, but that announcement was followed by a fifth straight quarter in which global PC sales dropped as consumers shift ever more rapidly to mobile devices. Although Lenovo’s laptop sales rose by 4.7 percent, its PC shipments were flat, with their share of total revenue falling to 28 percent. Worldwide PC shipments fell 11 percent in the period between April and June.

In spite of the drop in PC sales, analysts remain impressed with Lenovo’s products and execution; as one Barclay’s analyst stated, “It is the only Asia PC company that is able to deliver market expectation results, facing strong headwinds from concerns about global PC and smartphone demand.”

Lenovo has global headquarters in Beijing and North Carolina, and first broke into the mobile market with a smartphone release in 2010. Since then, the company has released enough mobile products to compete with the likes of Apple (News - Alert), Samsung and HTC. The Thinkpad laptop, for instance, utilized mobile-like response times and startup features so as to appeal to mobile-minded customers. This year, according chairman Yang Yuanging, Lenovo’s sales target is 50 million smartphones and 10 million tablets; the company is “very confident” that those goals can be met after the most recent quarter.

The family reunion continues to expand, and who knows – it might be a matter of time before PCs graduate to the grown-ups’ table.