Lenovo smartphones in India - Will they succeed?

Lenovo has announced their plans to launch smartphones in India next month. It's expected that the company will hold a mega event to announce their foray into India's already crowded mobile markets. Lenovo has confirmed the news and we expect the details of the launch very soon. The company has a successful range of smartphones in China and is now looking to expand. Countries like India, Indonesia and Philippines seem to be on company's radar. The bigger question is - will Lenovo succeed in Indian mobile phones market? Will it gain the the market share it's aiming at?

[caption id="attachment_43020" align="aligncenter" width="522"] Image Via: BGR.IN[/caption]

Lenovo is already #2 vendor in China

Lenovo is known to the world as a PC-Desktop and Laptop maker. But not many know that the company is already #2 in China as a smartphone vendor; while the #1 spot is held by Samsung. Lenovo commands 11.2% market share in Chinese markets. That should tell us a lot of things - the first and foremost - Lenovo isn't entering into the smartphones market for the first time and they've already tested the waters. They also are well aware of the challenges they're going to face while scaling up in other geographies. Over the last few months, we heard the news of Lenovo's LePhone K860, LePhone S760 , LePhone S2 and others being launched in China. These phones rival the top end phones in the market. The K860, for example offers quad core Exynos processor, Mali-400MP GPU and big 5" display.

The local competition

The bigger competition Lenovo will face in India will be from the home grown brands like Micromax, Spice Mobile, Karbonn and others. You may argue that the company is entering into the smartphone markets where the local brands don't have a strong hold. It's important to note that the band of smartphone consumers has been divided by the top brands like Apple, Samsung, RIM and to some extent Nokia. Breaking into the league is going to be quite tough and developing it's own fanbase is going to be very challenging for Lenovo. Plus, companies like Micromax have been rapidly making entry into the smartphone markets so Lenovo can't choose to ignore them either.

Indian markets have been very price sensitive and the pricing of Lenovo's smartphones will be one of the big factors for the company to establish itself. We can't ignore the fact that Lenovo is already late to the party. Unless they offer some serious innovations and an attractive price tag for their phones & tablets, Lenovo's future in the smartphone domain will be uncertain.

But Lenovo makes computers & laptops; not phones

Yet another, bigger challenge would be to establish Lenovo as a brand that makes smartphones. Indians know the company as a maker of computers, not phones. I can't stop from drawing comparisons with Dell - that seriously burnt its hands in the smartphone markets. Dell was one of the first companies to try the 5" phablet; but it fell flat on its face. It was Samsung that went on disrupting the mobile markets with their Galaxy Note. I hope Lenovo's brand managers have studied the Dell's smartphone failure story in detail and they won't repeat their mistakes.

I believe Lenovo will enter into Indian markets with a long term plan to establish themselves as a maker of smart electronics ranging from computers to smartphones and tablets. This is going to be more of a strategic challenge than a technical one. One of the ways to go about it could be to position the launch of their smartphones in sync with the rivals and clearly sending out signals that the company is at par with other players in the market. Samsung has been using this strategy for a long time now against  Apple, quite successfully.

I expect both Android & Windows Phones

The smartphone markets are currently dominated by Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Nokia, through their strategic partnership with Microsoft is playing a different game and I think they've found their USP. Most of the people who've toyed with the Windows 8 mobile operating system have been delighted, but it's the developer community that's going to make it successful. Microsoft and Nokia both know it very well and have already been taking steps. I think it's right time for Lenovo to step-in and make sure they launch at least 3 high-end smartphones running Windows 8 Operating System. That'd surely attract those who've had enough of Android and don't want to go the Apple way.

Let the consumer win

Lenovo's entry to the India's smartphone business is welcome. With an established ecosystem for computers, Lenovo can leverage it to offer better experience to the consumers. I wish Lenovo all the best and look forward to seeing and experiencing what they have in the bag.

We'll of course keep everyone updated about Lenovo smartphone launches through our news section #-Link-Snipped-#. Stay tuned for updates.