Lenovo eyes India to boost global sales growth

The Dollar Business Bureau

Lenovo, China’s multinational technology giant, is looking towards India to significantly enhance its sales growth worldwide even as sales of smartphone witnessed a slowdown in the Chinese market.

The world’s largest PC manufacturer received around $1 billion in revenues from India in 2015. The company is now looking to launch more premium devices in the country, such as the new Moto Z smartphones which can be modified with 'mods'.

'Mods' are specifically designed parts of hardware that snap into place magnetically to provide the smartphones additional capabilities.

"We will continue to invest in the market and grow our share here, there is a strong long term potential," said Aymar de Lencquesaing, Senior Vice President and Co-president Mobile Business Group (MBG), Lenovo, while speaking to reporters.

He further said that India’s market potential is huge as telecom operators have rolled out the 4G networks and there is strong economic growth.

“We currently have a market share of around 9 percent and are aimed at growing that to reach double digits,” Lencquesaing said.

Last year, Lenovo's total revenues grew 68 percent. The company’s revenues from India increased about 90 percent, while that from China dropped 26 percent.

On Lenovo’s investment plans, Lencquesaing said the company is thinking to ramp up its manufacturing capacity in the country from the present six million units. The increased capacity will be to meet the requirements of domestic market and as of now, there are no plans of exporting from India.

Research firm Gartner estimated that worldwide smartphone sales would slow down in 2016 and will grow only at 7 percent against the double digit growth witnessed over the last few years.

This is due to the slower growth in sales in mature markets such as Japan and Europe. The sales of smartphones were flat in China last year and slight growth is estimated in the coming five years.

On the other hand, India remains a market for opportunity and offers the highest potential for growth, Gartner said.

Lenovo's sales of mobile business for the quarter January-March 2016 was at $1.7 billion. The company exported 10.9 million smartphones in the quarter ended March 2016 and 66.1 million in the entire fiscal.