Lenovo to bring smartphones to India, Indonesia and Philipines

The world's largest computer maker, Lenovo Group Ltd, said it would bring smartphones to India, the Philippines and Indonesia to gain more experience before it entered developed markets such as the US.

According to Milko Van Juil, president of for the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions, after starting smartphone sales two-and-a-half years ago in China, Lenovo was ready to expand outside its home market. He said in an interview that Lenovo had already found distribution partners in the three developing countries.

The company would draw on its experience of selling devices in rural parts of China, where its smartphones overtook Apple Inc's iPhone for the second-biggest market share in the second quarter, researcher IDC said.

A move to emerging markets would first help the company expand its smartphone business while avoiding expensive marketing and intellectual-property hurdles in the US and western Europe, according to Van Dujl.

According to analysts, the US was a carrier-driven market which implied subsidies and churn rates were more important as also brand, and while Lenovo had a PC brand, the smartphone brand was still unknown.

According to Van Duijl, the company had been stepping up development of smartphones, tablets and internet-ready televisions to offer a wider variety of products to consumers, following the strategies of Apple and Samsung Electronics Co. He added, smartphones would eventually be the company's principal product in emerging markets as the devices took on more of the functions of televisions and PCs.