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Under Lenovo, will Motorola have better luck with Chinese smartphone buyers?
You may struggle to take Lenovo seriously after Ashton Kutcher, its new "product engineer," knelt before CEO Yang Yuanqing at the Yoga Tablet launch in Beijing. But this is the same Chinese company that's making a second-round purchase from IBM -- previously for its PC division with $1.75 billion, and this time for its x86 server business with $2.3 billion. Merely a week later (and just in time for Chinese New Year), Lenovo announced that it's also snapping up Motorola's smartphone business from Google for $2.9 billion, with the intention to crack the North American, Latin American and Western European mobile markets. When combined, Lenovo and Motorola ("LenoMo?" "Lenola?") will leap from fifth place to third in terms of worldwide smartphone shipments between Q4 2012 and Q3 2013, placing them ahead of LG, Sony and Nokia, but they still trail far behind Samsung and Apple. Looking at its home turf, though, will the deal do much to help Lenovo maintain its number two position in the increasingly competitive market in China? Or perhaps even knock Samsung off the top of the chart? Not directly, no.
Lenovo CEO shares $3.25 million of his bonus with employees (again) after record year
After helping Lenovo thrive in the wretched PC industry -- while also making it the number one Chinese smartphone maker -- CEO Yang Yuanqing earned a sizeable bonus. And like last year, he's sharing the wealth with front-line employees, giving $3.25 million of his $14.6 million salary to 10,000 workers in 20 countries. Lenovo grabbed a record $34 billion during its last fiscal year, along with an all-time high $653 million in profit. While the sum he shared may be small compared to that, it's almost a month's pay for the 85 percent who work in China. And we can't say we've seen too many CEOs stateside willing to part with their personal private jet fuel stash.
Lenovo hopes to sell smartphones in the US within a year
While Lenovo is one of the fastest-rising smartphone makers today, many Americans wouldn't know it when the company has never officially sold handsets in the country. They might soon be well acquainted, according to CEO Yang Yuanqing: he wants Lenovo to be selling smartphones in the US within a year's time. Mobile is the firm's next growth machine, he tells the Wall Street Journal, and that entails having smartphones in big markets beyond China, India and Russia. Yang is under no illusions that Lenovo can simply waltz into the fiercely competitive US market, but he also doesn't see much choice -- when the PC market is slowing down, business as usual may not be enough.
Lenovo to split into Lenovo Business Group and Think Business Group, effective in April
Lenovo's done pretty well since its acquisition of IBM's personal computer business in 2005, but in an internal e-mail earlier today, CEO Yang Yuanqing admitted that despite some attempt, the Lenovo brand is still only playing well in the mainstream and low-end markets; whereas the Think brand is his company's best asset in the high-end market, and that it is the only brand that can compete with Apple in the high-end market. For the sake of better brand positioning and better efficiency, Yang announced in the same e-mail that his company will split into two new groups: Lenovo Business Group (LBG) and Think Business Group (TBG). Effective from April 1st, LBG will be headed by Senior Vice President (Mobile Internet Digital Home) Liu Jun to focus on mainstream consumer and business desktops, laptops, and tablets, as well as smartphones and smart TVs. On the other side of the fence, TBG will be led by Senior Vice President (Product Group) Dr. Peter Hortensius to better establish the business-friendly Think brand in the consumer market, as well as continuing to stay ahead of the game in the global commercial business. Yang also pointed out that the recently created enterprise business team and workstation team will be part of TBG. It'll be a while before we see the fruit of Lenovo's restructure, but it'll sure be interesting to come back to this in a year's time. Alas, we're now further away from ever seeing a ThinkPhone.
Lenovo CEO spreads the wealth, distributes his $3 million bonus to lower level employees
The list of CEOs and other execs in the US that have accepted multi-million dollar bonuses for lording over the crash and burn of a company (or even an entire economy) is staggering. And we can guarantee you that most of that money went towards fancy cars and golden toilet seats. Lenovo's Yang Yuanqing, on the other hand, received a sizable $3 million bonus for actually being good at his job. The additional bonus was a reward for steering the company to record shipments and profits despite a weakening PC market. And what did Mr. Yuanqing do with that money? He gave it back to his employees. That second bonus was broken down into 10,000 discrete chunks and dispersed to line workers, assistants and other lower-level employees. I think that officially makes Yang Yuanqing our new favorite CEO in tech.
Lenovo CEO: LePad's slimmer successor should arrive in September or October
Lenovo may have just launched the much delayed LePad in China, but it's already giddying us with a surprisingly early date for said Android tablet's successor. At last night's opening banquet for the 2011 Chinese IT Leadership Summit, CEO Yang Yuanqing revealed that the second-gen LePad will be slimmer (which is a given these days), and is expected to be launched in September or October -- merely three or four months after le original LePad's upcoming global launch in June. Shedding no light on specifications, Yang added that the next LePad was developed in parallel with its predecessor under a separate team, allowing it to come to fruition in just nine months. Very well, but actually making it to the market is an entirely different story, so we shall sit tight and watch -- hopefully Mr. Blurrycam will deliver the goods beforehand, too.
Confirmed: Lenovo LePad headed to US in 2011
Lenovo led us to believe that our LePad chances weren't terribly good, but CEO Yang Yuanqing recently told the Wall Street Journal that the Android tablet is indeed slated for a 2011 US launch. Though Lenovo's COO Rory Read was pretty clear that the LePad wouldn't ship stateside until a tablet-ready version of Android was ready to go, it seems the company's now confident that Google will deliver the goods. However, our gain is apparently China's loss, as the publication reports that the slate's been pushed into 2011 (as opposed to this December) in its country of origin as well. What's a multinational computer corporation to do?
Lenovo CEO says mobile internet products will soon account for '70 to 80 percent' of sales
Lenovo may mostly be associated with laptops and all-business desktops these days, but it looks like the company's CEO hopes that won't be the case for too much longer. Speaking with the AP, Yang Yuanqing dropped the somewhat surprising statement that he expects mobile internet products to account for between 70 and 80 percent of the company's sales "within three to five years." Of course, Yang didn't specify exactly what constitutes a "mobile internet product" for Lenovo, but we'd assume it includes things like the company's new IdeaPad S10-3t (and possibly even traditional laptops), or else it really has its work cut out for itself. He further went on to add that Lenovo is focused on a "protect and attack" strategy over the longer term, noting that while China accounts for half of its global sales at the moment, it's now facing increased competition from the likes of Dell and HP both at home and abroad.
Lenovo's American CEO steps down, Chinese leadership returns
After leaving Dell to become chief executive of Lenovo, Bill Amelio is stepping down from his post as CEO. Amelio joined Lenovo to help with the integration of IBM's PC business. The so-called "amicable" departure comes with the announcement of a quarterly loss three-times higher than expected. The US executive has been replaced by Lenovo's Chairman Yang Yuanqing who will continue to live and work from Lenovo's North Carolina office -- Yang's board leadership duties will now be assumed by Lenovo's co-founder, Liu Chuanzhi. That puts Lenovo back into the hands of executive Chinese leadership as it attempts to recapture ground given up to HP and Acer in corporate sales. And with IT budgets slashed in a bid to keep corporations afloat, the executive changes are meant to accelerate Lenovo's strategy to dominate China's PC market, grow its business into emerging markets (specifically India and Russia), and expand upon its burgeoning sales to individual consumers. Seems like a reasonable move to us.[Via Bloomberg]
