Lenovo shying from the mobile market?

Not many know that Lenovo, which took over the IBM brand of laptops and
desktops over a year and half ago, has its own range of cell phones. And it
looks like Lenovo India would like to keep it that way.

Chinese company Lenovo entered the cell phone market with the i921 PDA cell
phone. But this product was launched in China and the company has limited its
cell phone business only to its origin country.

Less than six months ago, Lenovo Mobile set-up a new phone production base in
Xiamen in China to reach its goal of seizing 10 percent of the marketshare in
the country. Its aim is to be one of the top three mobile phone manufacturers in
China by the end of this year.

Bill Amelio, CEO, Lenovo, had announced at the opening of the plant, that the
new production base would produce 15 to 30 million mobile phones each year. This
new base is also capable of making 3G mobile phones.

This is all very good. But why is the IT major not bringing its cell phones
into India, which is currently one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the
APAC region? Vivek Malhotra, Director-Relationship Business, South Asia, Lenovo
India does not have an answer. He ventured that such a move was likely within
the next year, though nothing has been decided by the top management yet.

After the IBM buyout Lenovo has become the third largest PC brand in the
world, after Dell and HP. It has unleashed an advertising blitzkrieg to promote
its newly acquired range of desktops and laptops. It would have been easy for
the company to ride on this advertising wave to evangelize its mobile phone
offerings as well. But the company seems to be slow on the uptake.

Malhotra noted that there could be one reason for the management's decision
to take time to enter the Indian market. “Selling this product means setting up
a new channel and delivery mode. Right now, our focus is on our laptops and
desktops, which is probably why the management is not willing to dive into the
mobile market immediately,” he said.

Channel speak

Most partners are absolutely unaware that Lenovo also has mobile phones in
its kitty. Raj Agarwal of Cell Compu Systems in Siliguri felt that the brand
would do well if it introduced its handsets, since the telecom market is on the
upswing.

Amir Khan of Cell Point, Hyderabad too was surprised to learn that the IT
major also had mobile handsets. He felt that the company should not lose time in
launching the products, especially since its laptops are gaining brand recall
and the company can leverage on this popularity for its telecom products too.