Westcoast hails Lenovo as key signing

Distributor admits it has been chasing after Chinese PC vendor for years as it inks consumer-focused partnership

Lenovo has added Westcoast as a fourth UK distributor to help boost its penetration of the consumer market.

Westcoast will join Ingram Micro, Tech Data and Micro-P in Lenovo's distribution line-up, focusing on the vendor's consumer portfolio, including its Yoga tablets and notebooks.

Westcoast managing director Alex Tatham hailed the partnership, which kicks off today, as a seminal signing for the Reading-based distributor.

"As a big distributor, it is important that we have the key vendors on board and we have been chasing Lenovo for a long time. I think it will be an excellent vendor for us."

According to the latest data from Gartner, Lenovo has grown to become the UK's second-largest PC brand, holding a market share of 11.9 per cent in Q4 2013 after shipping 343,000 units. However, its footprint is still only about half as large as rival HP, which bit off 22.3 per cent share in the same quarter. These figures do not include most tablets and Chromebooks.

Tatham said Westcoast has been charged with increasing penetration of Lenovo's consumer products "everywhere", not just among retail chains. This includes independent retailers and resellers, as well as the education market, where schoolchildren buying PCs through government-backed schemes effectively act as consumers.

Westcoast is renowned for its prowess with HP but Tatham maintained the two brands could happily co-exist.

"Lenovo is more consumer focused than other vendors and as a result is very complementary to our overall portfolio," he said. "The deal is very much driven around the consumer portfolio and what we can do to help with that."