Lenovo’s CEO had a pretty blunt statement to reporters during its Tech World that’s taking place in China this week. The company’s CEO, Yang Yuanqing is asking for patience currently, as he works to get Lenovo growing again. The company is currently the world’s largest PC maker and is looking to become one of the largest smartphone makers as well – as evident by the purchase of Motorola not too long ago. But Yuanqing did state publicly that if he is unable to hit a sales goal, he will step down as CEO of Lenovo. That’s a pretty confident statement to make, especially in public.
Yuanqing has big plans for Lenovo, he wants to invest around $1 billion into AI, and compete with Alibaba and Tencent in that race. But for now, he has plans to drastically improve its e-commerce sales, and wants it to bring in 80 billion yuan or around $12 billion USD in annual revenue within the next three years. Lenovo is looking to do this through JD.com which is the online retailer that Lenovo uses to sell its products – as well as a number of other Chinese manufacturers. That’s the goal he is planning to hit, or he’ll walk away from the company, which is a bold move. It’s also a move that could really pay off for Yuanqing and Lenovo.
Lenovo hasn’t always been a huge company. The company only started to really grow after it picked up IBM’s low-end server business in 2005, then it moved onto picking up IBM’s ThinkPad business and Motorola in 2014. Each purchase has helped Lenovo grow in each area. From servers, to PC’s and now into the mobile world. Lenovo had already had a foothold in mobile, although it wasn’t as popular in the west as it is in the east. Lenovo largely sells its smartphones in China and other Asian countries, with a few of them making their way into Europe and Africa. But almost none of them are sold in the US. That is beginning to change, however, with the Phab2 line of devices being sold in the US, most notably the Phab2 Pro, which has Google’s Tango AR included.