Lenovo is well-known for personal computers manufacturing and now, it’s the world’s leading PC vendor, followed by HP and Dell. Big turn was seen in 2005 when Lenovo purchased IBM’s computer business. As demand of smartphones are increasing, the Chinese multinational hardware and Electronics Company has decided to make stronghold in this segment.
Lenovo has already started selling smartphone in its homeland (China) and now it’s planning to expand its business around the country—It’s not targeting to matured countries this time, but emerging countries. And it’s also expected that the Chinese vendor could launch 5-8 models in India in coming months and those will be powered by Android with price ranging from $149 to $349.
Talking of competition in Indian smartphone segment, it’s going to be intensified in upcoming months. Worldwide PC shipments declined by 8.2% in Q3 2012 from the same quarter of the last year. Lenovo shipped 13.7 million PCs in Q3 2012, followed by HP and Dell with 13.5 million and 9.2 million units respectively. But this time, users are more interested to own smartphone and Tablets rather than PCs. A significant number of users are still confused with Windows 8 and business professionals are also reluctant to be early adopter of the OS.
But there is cut-throat competition in smartphone segment. Now, Nokia and RIM are struggling to standalone in the market. However, RIM and Nokia have still good presence in Indian smartphone market. But Samsung is leading vendor in the country; ruling over almost half of the smartphone market and targeting to grab 60%  of smartphone market by the end of this year.
In India, local vendors including Micromax, Karbonn and more are quite aggressive to further firm up the leadership in the market. Micromax has good grip on the feature phone segment and now, it’s endeavoring to compete with Global players like Samsung, LG, HTC, Nokia and more in smartphone segment. The company is now focusing on two separate divisions—feature phone division and smartphone division.
Recently, we discussed how Micromax is trying to double its presence in India. The company is more focused to strengthen relationship with channel partners in order to make stronger distribution network across the country. Besides, it’s also committed to create a robust network that brings the company closer to customers. Micromax wants to extend smartphone portfolio with eight different variants and also, endeavors to beef up device shipments almost double in every months—it has targeted to achieve 1.5 lakhs units shipments in every month by the end of this year.
In addition to these, some other Chinese vendors are also offering their smartphone at very affordable price tags. It’s pretty-known that there is a huge opportunity for all smartphone vendors in India; 20 million smartphones are expected to be shipped this year and demand is tremendously increasing in upcoming years. Of course, Lenovo will have to compete with other Android vendors like HTC, LG, Samsung and more in the country. This time, Apple is also trying to entice Indian smartphone users and it’s now offering iPhone 5 for INR 45, 499 in the country.
