Lenovo: Smartphones set for Europe in 'next financial year'
Vendor's EMEA president Gianfranco Lanci reveals long wait is almost over, but phones will not be available in every country at first
Lenovo is almost ready to launch its smartphone range in Europe, the firm’s EMEA president has revealed.
Speaking in a Q&A session at the Canalys Channels Forum in Barcelona, Gianfranco Lanci said the firm has already seen success in China with its phones, but that the European market needed more preparation. Originally the vendor hinted its phones would come to Europe this year.
“We are number four worldwide with smartphones based on China. We have started shipping in Russia and the Middle East and Africa as well. We will launch our smartphones in Europe in the next financial year.
“In Europe it is still mainly subsidised business, which means we need to go to the different operators and need a broader level of integration, and also need the back-end infrastructure to provide a service to the operators. We will introduce our smartphones next year, we are now ready.”
But although he stressed that the phones would not be in every territory in Europe, he did not detail which territories it would include.
Lanci (pictured) was asked by Canalys chief executive Steve Brazier why some PC vendors had failed to crack the smartphone market, and he replied that it was all about the approach.
“You cannot approach smartphones like a PC – the level of software integration you need on a smartphone is more than a PC. It is a totally different game and the profit is very different. It is a completely different world to what we have been used to,” he said. He also stressed his commitment to the channel.
“More than 95 per cent of our business goes through the channel,” he said, adding that the vendor has ambitious plans to get to 10 per cent of market share globally.
“Our goal is to become leader in the smart connected device space – we are not even double digit yet. We sold more tablets and smartphones than laptops last year – mainly in China – but we are confident of [global] growth.”
He also disputed the belief that the PC market was in constant decline.
“We are going through big changes in the industry – in the early 90s we started seeing notebooks and PCs were sold in two form factors. Today when you look at PCs you think of multiple form factors with new user interfaces. I do not think growth will come from traditional PCs and clamshell-style laptops, but we will continue to see growth in other form factors, rather than these more traditional ones.”
And when asked whether Lenovo was close to making another acquisition, Lanci brushed off recent rumours, but said: “Organic growth is our foundation, but we never have said we were not open to evaluate any acquisition if it makes sense from a geographical or product point of view.”