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Lenovo Mobile Business Group is planning to focus more on the offline space despite it being the leader in online sales of smartphones, with the 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 in the traditional brick n mortar route.
Motorola models, which were traditionally sold online, will also be 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 not looking at touch and feel and they are not metro-centric, but 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 happen online, and the remaining offline.
Lenovo has been the top online smartphone brand in India for the past seven quarters with 24.09 per cent market share, and ranks number two in the 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.
“In offline we want to be among the top three players, that’s the journey going forward,” he said, adding, at present one of every four smartphones sold online is either a Motorola or a Lenova device.
In 2014, Beijing-based Lenovo Group acquired Motorola from Google for $2.9 billion, and later began replacing the Motorola with the Moto brand.
The Lenovo-Motorola combine now ranks lower in the seventh or eighth position in the offline space in India. The company is looking to expand its offline presence further, from the about 350-odd towns.
He, however, did not provide a timeline for placing 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 the Lenovo K6 Note, the latest in its popular K series, on Wednesday, mainly targeting offline buyers in the country.
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