Lenovo will focus more on offline sales, says Sudhin Mathur

Lenovo Mobile Business Group is planning to focus more on offline space, despite it being the leader in online sales of smartphones, with an intention to emerge as one of the top three players in the country.

The company will sell its latest K6 Note offline, making it the first model of the K series to be sold through the traditional brick and mortar route.

Motorola models, which were traditionally sold online, will be also sold offline now. “Definitely, we need to protect our online position. But the dynamics of online and offline markets are slightly different, with online customers are not looking at touch and feel and they are not metro-centric, but they are limited by internet access,” Sudhin Mathur, Executive Director at Lenovo Mobile Business Group, told BusinessLine in an interaction.

At present, about one-third of the total smartphone sales happens online, and the remaining offline.

Lenovo has been the No.1 online smartphone brand in India for the past seven quarters with 24.09 per cent market share and ranks No.2 in overall smartphone market with a 9.56 per cent market share. The country’s total shipment of smartphones stood at 32 million units, according to an International Data Corporation (IDC) study.

“On offline we want to be among the top three players, that’s the journey going forward,” he said, adding, at present one out of every four smartphones sold online is either a Motorola or a Lenovo device.

In 2014, Beijing-based Lenovo Group acquired Motorola from Google for $2.9 billion, and later began replacing Motorola with Moto brand. Lenovo-Motorola combine now ranks lower at about 7th or 8th position in the offline space in India. The company is looking t0 expand its offline presence further from the about 350-odd towns.

He, however, did not provide a timeline for being among the top three players in India.

“The K series has been successful online. Now, we want to replicate that success offline too,” he said.

In the online space, the company’s dual brand strategy – both Lenovo and Motorola – has been doing well. Lenovo launched K6 Note on Wednesday mainly targeting offline buyers in the country.

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