Lenovo to expand smartphones

Mumbai: Lenovo Group Ltd, the world’s second-largest computer maker, said it will bring smartphones to India, the Philippines and Indonesia to gain more heft and experience before entering developed markets such as the US.

After starting smartphone sales 2 1/2 years ago in China, Lenovo is ready to expand outside its home market, Milko Van Duijl, president for the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions, said in an interview. Lenovo has already found distribution partners in the three developing countries, he said.The company will draw on its experience selling devices in rural parts of China, the country where Lenovo’s smartphones overtook Apple Inc’s iPhone for the second-biggest market share in the second quarter, according to researcher IDC. Moving to emerging markets first will help the company expand its smartphone business while avoiding expensive marketing and intellectual-property hurdles in the US and western Europe, Van Duijl said.

“The US is a carrier-driven market which implies subsidies and churn rates are more important as well as brand, and while Lenovo has a PC brand, the smartphone brand is still unknown,” Kishore Suratkal, an analyst at Religare Capital Markets in Hong Kong, said in an e-mail on Friday. “It makes sense for Lenovo to perfect the product portfolio in emerging markets where distribution matters more than carriers, establish a brand, and then attack the US market.”