Lenovo is well known in the US for its business laptops with the brand name ThinkPad. It has now formed a new group of businesses for developing Internet based electronic devices for consumers, including smart phones, digital TVs and tablet computers. Its recent announcement refers to the Chinese company Lenovo’s continuing thrust into the consumer markets outside China. In the year 2008, the company introduced its first type of consumer products in the US which is the IdeaPad line of personal computers.
Lenovo while making the announcement did not mention about launching any new sort of products, but concentrated mainly on the formation of the new group. Former senior vice president and presently president of the company for its product group, Liu Jun, will be heading the digital home and the mobile Internet business group. Liu is from Beijing and is the president of the new group.
Lenovo is contemplating the diversification of companies further than PCs into upcoming mobile devices like smart phones and tablet computers. Sales output for such types of electronic devices are poised to overtake the stagnant market for laptops and desktop computers. Forrester Research has predicted that tablet sales will double during the current year and it will attain the figure of more than twenty four million units as compared to the last year figure of nearly ten million units. According to the fourth quarter sales figure available for PCs in the United States, it has been observed that percentage wise drop is around 4.8 percent because of Apple’s tablets and iPad using the Android operating system of Google.
Lenovo has already stepped into the tablet market. In the Consumer Electronics Show held at Las Vegas during the current year, it launched the new product IdeaPad Slate comprising high resolution display and a tablet having 10.1 inch thickness. This tablet, about to be introduced in the market in the current year, will utilize Windows 7 and challenge the similar products available now in the market like Android and tablets from the manufacturers like Toshiba, Samsung, Motorola and many others. The company has also displayed the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid. This computer appears like a laptop, having a detachable display, and the user may carry it while moving like a tablet. Its screen is located in the chassis and the computer operates on Windows 7. The touch screen operates Android like a tablet. Lenovo has not yet confirmed when the product will be launched in the US market.
