[Marketplace News] During the Dragon Boat Festival, Lenovo Group held the second Lenovo Tech World in San Francisco on the 9th, and released several interesting mobile phones.
At the press conference, new magneto phones including the world's thinnest flagship smart phone Moto Z series and the epoch-making Moto Mods module innovation platform were displayed.
Through 18 magnetic suction points, JBL Sound Boost music module can be added behind the thinnest Moto Z, and Insta Share Projector projection module can be added. It can put 70 inch projection pictures on any plane, and can be equipped with Power Pack power module to quickly complete wireless charging in a short time.
At the press conference, Lenovo also showed Phab2 Pro, the world's first AR large screen smartphone equipped with Tango technology, which is in cooperation with Google. It took the lead in popularizing AR technology and providing users with a series of cutting-edge AR experiences.
In addition, Lenovo also showed the latest application of the yet to be released shatterproof screen technology and flexible screen technology that day. And a series of intelligent devices including running shoes.
At the end of last month, Lenovo Group Co., Ltd. released its 2015/2016 annual results and financial statements as of March 31, 2016. According to the financial report, Lenovo's revenue during the reporting period was $44.912 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 3%. Both the PC business and the mobile phone business declined, with a net loss of $128 million (about 840 million yuan) for the whole fiscal year. This is another annual loss of Lenovo after the 2008 fiscal year.
Later, Lenovo released a new smartphone product, Z2, and said that it would use a few years to fight a turnaround in the smartphone market.
Now, with the arrival of new Motorola smart phones, what does Lenovo really want to do? How is it going to solve the current dilemma?
1、 How did Lenovo get into trouble?
As an early IT enterprise in China, Lenovo has been developing well. PC era has always been the leader of the domestic industry. When PC hardware began to be surplus and growth stagnated, Lenovo was acutely aware of the crisis and acquired IBM's R&D, channel and brand with a large sum of money.
Since then, Lenovo's PC business has been going smoothly, leaving Founder, Tsinghua Tongfang and other domestic PC manufacturers behind, and competing with HP to become the industry leader.
In the field of smart phones, Lenovo started very early. It is the first partner of Microsoft WM smart phone, and there was no Apple or Android at that time. After the development of Android smart phones, Lenovo's LePhone is also one of the early outstanding products.
But then Lenovo got into trouble.
The popularity of smart phones and tablets has gradually begun to impact the originally stable PC market. The renewal cycle of PC has been prolonged, and the growth of PC market has slowed down.
Although Lenovo is already a leader in the PC market, the overall market is slowing down, and Lenovo is also hard to stay out of it. In fiscal year 2015, Lenovo's personal computer sales fell 6% to 56 million units year on year, while the market fell 12% year on year, and the personal computer business group revenue fell 11% to $29.646 billion year on year.
In the smartphone market, Lenovo is also in trouble. At first, Lenovo had a good cooperative relationship with operators, whose channels helped Lenovo become one of the four smart phone manufacturers of "Zhonghua Coolian".
In recent years, operators have gradually tightened the scope of subsidies, and Lenovo and Coolpad, which rely on operators, have been greatly affected. There was a problem with sales.
Lenovo itself is also in chaos. Because of historical reasons, there are many mountains and product lines in Lenovo. At one time, there were several internal brands of Lenovo's smart phones, including Lenovo, Lemeng, Zuk, Golden Fighter, Vibe... In addition to the acquisition of Motorola, Lenovo had several product lines to fight on their own.
From 2014 to 2016, the smartphone market began to saturate and enter the reshuffle period. It was precisely at this time that Lenovo acquired Motorola and entered the integration period.
Lenovo's original intention was to rely on the acquisition of Motorola to replicate the successful experience of PC business acquisition of IBM, but the transition of integration needs a cycle. In this transitional period, Lenovo's market share was squeezed out. China's market channels and business strategies have been adjusted, and Lenovo has fallen out of the top five in China due to strong challenges from Huawei, Oppo and other brands; North America also only accounted for 5.2% of the market share in the U.S. market due to the product switching after the acquisition of MOTO. In 2015, Lenovo sold 66 million mobile phones, down 13% year on year, including 15 million in China, with a total loss of $469 million in mobile business.
2、 Lenovo's Accumulated Power
Although Lenovo's performance declined, Lenovo's decision makers had good confidence in Lenovo's future. Where does Lenovo's confidence come from?
In fact, Lenovo, as a veteran of the IT industry, has seen the blue ocean of today's smartphone market become a red ocean once.
From 2001 to 2005, there was such a big reshuffle in the PC market. After the surplus of PC hardware, the growth rate slowed down. Lenovo saw its competitors fall one by one, but Lenovo did not fall that time. Instead, it developed better.
Lenovo went through the Red Sea crisis last time, and the acquisition of IBM helped Lenovo a lot. Through the acquisition of IBM, Lenovo gained admission tickets to high-end brands and European and American markets, and then prospered in the commercial PC market, obtaining high profits.
In China's household market, the decline of DIY has enabled Lenovo to acquire a large emerging market. In addition, Lenovo has launched products with high configuration and low price to compete with Shenzhou, ASUS and other brands.
IBM gains profits at the high end, and Lenovo brand gains sales at the low end. This is the experience of Lenovo PC going out of the red sea.
In the smartphone market, the decline of Xiaomi in 2015 has proved the importance of the brand. Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola in 2014 was a precaution.
Lenovo's problem is that it acquired Motorola in 2014, and changed hands in mobile phones in 2015, and then began to reduce its brand and develop new products. By the middle of 2016, the time period is too short. Lenovo's advantages have not yet been brought into play.
Lenovo's strategy is very clear. The low-end Lemon brand is cost-effective, and it is also an operator channel. The mid end ZUK brand is cost-effective, playing a price war with the Xiaomi glories, and working together online and offline. The high-end uses the acquired Motorola brand to regain IBM's glory in the PC era.
There is no problem with this strategy. The key now is implementation. It doesn't matter if you lag behind temporarily. What's important is how to do in the future?
3、 Motorola decides the success or failure of Lenovo mobile phones
At present, the general trend of the smartphone market is that Asian, African and Latin American countries still have growth opportunities, but the competition is fierce. Europe, the United States and China have already saturated the market, entering the era of new machine for old machine, brand winning.
For Lenovo, low-end products dominated by Lenovo and Lemon brands can go to Asia, Africa and Latin America. In fact, Lenovo did the same thing. In 2015, Lenovo's market share in India increased every quarter. In this regard, Lenovo has Motorola's patent escort, which is more advantageous than Xiaomi, Meizu, OPPO and vivo.
Middle end cost-effective products such as ZUK will have a certain sales volume, but the loss making products can only create momentum, and will not bring much profit.
Lenovo's real future lies in Motorola. Lenovo has acquired Motorola in the past two years, but it has not really made good use of Motorola's brand and resources. Motorola theoretically returned to China. But we can't see the product, nor can we see the promotion.
Motorola is a brand with a long history and the inventor of mobile phones. Compared with Huawei, OPPO has a longer history.
From the products of this press conference, Moto Mods module innovation platform is quite interesting, and has taken a new path in the era of homogenization. The next step for Lenovo is to use all resources to spread Motorola's new products to every corner, and make Motorola's advertisements accessible to every space.
To be accepted, a brand with high added value needs to be recognized by users. The configuration of OPPO R9 is not high, but the advertising of OPPO R9 covers various cultural and sports programs such as the runner with the highest audience rating, the NBA finals and so on. OPPO channels are all over the streets, which enables OPPO R9 to obtain daily sales of 180000 yuan at a low configuration and high price. (This is not the result of queuing online for many days and snapping up in one day, but the real daily sales)
Huawei was originally unknown, but after P6, channels and advertising spread, and after the mate series, Huawei's brand was gradually recognized.
Motorola has a long history, while Lenovo has PC channels and mobile phone channels all over the country. As long as Lenovo is willing to allocate all its resources to Motorola. It is much easier to remodel the Motorola brand than to build a new brand for Huawei mobile phones in those years.
The key to Lenovo PC's success in the Red Sea era is the integration and rational use of IBM resources. The integration and utilization of Motorola's resources determine the future of Lenovo's mobile phones.
Although Chen Xudong faces temporary difficulties, he has a good hand. Lenovo mobile phones still have a future if Motorola can be integrated well.
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