When you think about Lenovo, you may think about PC’s and laptops, but you’d be wrong to think that’s all they do. The Chinese company is also in the smartphone market and has been selling them for a while now. In fact, they sold six Million in 2011 alone. Sure, not Apple or Samsung numbers, but isn’t a number to laugh at either.
They announced that they not only want to triple sales to 18 Million units this year, but also going to release up to forty new models in the second half of 2012. Yes, forty. Going from my current knowledge, no company has ever released this many phones or smartphones for that matter, in such as short period of time. Each will cater to a different smartphone segment, including low end devices.
While 2011 was a good year for Lenovo, 2012 is proving to be even better. Smartphone shipments grew 21 fold compared to the first quarter of 2011 and they now have a 10% market share compared to just 1% the year before which would make them the fourth largest smartphone provider in China. They’re doing well in tablets as well with 17.2% market share and the second largest tablet provider in China, fourth largest in the World.
It’ll be interesting to see how this strategy works out for Lenovo. On one side, it’s a bit worrying considering the amount of choice that’s already available with Android. More phones could just confuse people and have them opt for another manufacturer with less to choose from. On the other side, it could prove to be a winning strategy. Less sales of each new phone times forty definitely adds up.