Lenovo adjusts its mobile business architecture brand to become the key to turning over

Lenovo mobile phones have new moves. Recently, Lenovo Mobile's China region commander has changed again: Chen Xudong has been the general manager of Lenovo Mobile's China region, Ren Weiguang Airborne joined the mobile business China strategic operation, Yang Jun and Wang Feng are still in charge of Lenovo's mobile business. Lenovo's high-profile staffing treatment of the Chinese mobile phone market, just want to express a meaning: Lenovo's China mobile phone business in 2016 to play a beautiful turnaround.

Behind Lenovo's personnel earthquake: seeking self-help

Behind the personnel movement of Lenovo Mobile China, it is seeking self-help. "Personal Computers, Enterprise Business and Smartphones" are three growth engines of Lenovo Group. At present, the personal computer business, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of Lenovo's revenue, has slowed down; and Lenovo's mobile phone business has no bright spots. In 2015, Lenovo's three consecutive quarters of declines, the first loss in six years. Morgan Stanley expects Lenovo's Lenovo PC division's profit to fall 10% in FY2016, mainly due to the market decline in PCs and smartphones. In 2014, after acquiring Motorola Mobile for $2.9 billion, Lenovo experienced severe personnel shocks, restructuring, and layoffs. After Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola, due to the economic downturn in Brazil and Latin America, Motorola's shipments have declined significantly, and Lenovo and Motorola's team and brand integration is not smooth, Lenovo's growth engine to restart the mobile phone business is imminent.

In fact, 2015 is a year in which Lenovo's mobile business challenges and opportunities coexist. In this year, the president of Lenovo Mobile Business Group Liu Jun resigned, the performance of smart phones was stagnant, Motorola mobile layoffs, Lenovo also sorted out the development context, will be lightly loaded.

Prior to this, Lenovo's mobile phone experienced three major changes. First of all, MOTO and Lenovo are thoroughly integrated from organization to product, and inventory is cleared. The annual expenditure is reduced by 800 million US dollars. Secondly, product development is strengthened. The Moto series and the Le Lemon X3 model have a good response; the third is that the new team will define the future strategic direction and focus on emerging markets outside China.

Internal and external troubles: Lenovo mobile phone became a big loser in 2015

In the domestic mobile phone market last year, Lenovo was the biggest loser, and it was already behind Xiaomi and Huawei. Lenovo has gone downhill, not only because of the bad external environment of the smart phone market, but also because of its own brand strategy errors and unclear market positioning.

First of all, the current global smartphone market has become a devastating Red Sea. According to the latest report from the market research firm TrendForce: In 2015, global smartphone shipments reached 1.293 billion, an increase of 10.3%. China's mobile phone companies have become the biggest highlights in 2015, with Huawei replacing Lenovo with the market share of 8.4% to become the world's third-largest smartphone, second only to Samsung and Apple. Lenovo succumbed to the fourth-ranked millet with a market share of 5.4%, making it the biggest loser of domestic mobile phones. Other Chinese companies in the top ten also include TCL, OPPO, VIVO and ZTE. Morgan Stanley predicts that in 2016, global smartphones are expected to grow below 10%, which will make Lenovo's efforts to expand overseas markets worse.

Secondly, compared with Lenovo's mobile phone products, there is no clear product and no clear positioning of mobile phones. Lenovo has no obvious user tags on the market for every phone. Currently, Lenovo mobile phones have 4 brands. Among them, Lenov has suffered a cliff-like decline, VIBE is getting lower and lower, and the new brand ZUK is unpredictable. Motorola, which is highly anticipated, has accelerated its integration due to slow aging, and there are still problems such as long product cycles and unsuitability for domestic users. Lenovo's mobile phone won the market with machine-sea tactics, but it suffered a fierce attack from Xiaomi and Huawei. A large number of cheap custom machines, overdraft the brand of Lenovo mobile phones. The product layout is chaotic, and the low end of the image becomes the "labeling" impression of consumers on Lenovo mobile phones.

Finally, I can't keep up with the rhythm of internet marketing. Lenovo's mobile phone business once took the tactics at a low cost, with the rise of the operator channel. The Lenovo mobile phone business used to account for about 80% of the carrier market. After the tens of billions of terminal subsidies disappeared by the three major operators each year and Internet marketing channels rose, Lenovo's mobile phones went from bad to worse. In August last year, Lenovo ZUK mobile phone, which was built according to Internet thinking, suddenly appeared without any event marketing. This year, Lenovo had to announce the abandonment of the ZUK brand. At the same time, brands such as Xiaomi and Huawei have developed rapidly through Internet marketing. It took Apple 10 years to get sales to $2 billion. Xiaomi has reached $2 billion in marketing through fan groups and topic marketing for two years. Since 2013, Huawei has been fully promoting the construction of e-commerce platform, and the "Glory" mobile phone brand has also been in the limelight.

There are three strategies for Lenovo's rebirth in 2016.

From the current situation, Lenovo mobile phones have many shortcomings, including weak technology and product building capabilities, lack of good operating models, market channels and marketing strategies. However, Lenovo has already begun to solve these problems, and proposed three strategies for revitalizing the mobile business of grounding: creating quality products; restructuring the supply chain; re-engineering sales and marketing.


First, the brand strategy, to a small number of models, to sell a large number, go to the boutique direction to do. Lenovo will abandon the previous practice of dozens of mobile phone products on the market every year, focusing only on the two brands of MOTO and Le Lemon, to develop in the middle and high end. In order to create more boutique explosions, Yang Yuanqing, Chen Xudong and other high-level advocates launched the "super product manager system" to stimulate the entrepreneurial passion of all employees.

Second, the supply chain is re-integrated to reduce costs and shorten product cycles. MOTO and Lenovo's mobile phone sales are close, and there are nearly 20% of gross profit. But in terms of cost, Lenovo only spent $400 million, while MOTO spent about $2 billion. In the future, Lenovo will carry out a series of cost reduction actions. In order to quickly respond to the market and reduce costs, Chen Xudong asked the supply chain procurement lead time to be shortened from MOTO's current 16 weeks, Lenovo's 8 weeks to 6 weeks.

The third is to change the marketing strategy, focusing on overseas and offline markets. At present, Lenovo's mobile phone share in major emerging markets outside China ranks second in the world. Especially in India, the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and other markets, Lenovo's mobile phone shipments have increased significantly. After all, there are not many vendors like Lenovo that have channel bases in more than 160 countries around the world. In addition, in order to make up for the lack of online channels, Lenovo's move is to divide the country into 100 grids, the channels directly sink to the villages and even the husband and wife stores, copying the successful play in the PC market.

In 2016, Lenovo's mobile phone is a beautiful turnaround, or gradually become the next Nokia, which is "Lenovo".