Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese multinational
technology company
A technology company (or tech company) is an electronics-based technological company, including, for example, business relating to digital electronics, software, and internet-related services, such as e-commerce services.
Details
According to '' ...
specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing
consumer electronics
Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic ( analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usuall ...
,
personal computers
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
, software, business solutions, and related services. Products manufactured by the company include
desktop computers
A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply, ...
,
laptops
A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
,
tablet computers
A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being compu ...
workstations
A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''worksta ...
supercomputers
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions p ...
ThinkPad
ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design la ...
business line of laptop computers (acquired from IBM), the
IdeaPad
IdeaPad (stylized as IDEAPΛD and formerly ideapad) is a line of consumer-oriented laptop computers designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo. The IdeaPad mainly competes against computers such as Acer's Aspire, Dell's Inspiron and XPS, HP ...
,
Yoga
Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...
, and
Legion
Legion may refer to:
Military
* Roman legion, the basic military unit of the ancient Roman army
* Spanish Legion, an elite military unit within the Spanish Army
* Legion of the United States, a reorganization of the United States Army from 179 ...
consumer lines of laptop computers, and the
IdeaCentre
The IdeaCentre is a line of consumer-oriented desktop computers designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo. The first IdeaCentre desktop, the IdeaCentre K210, was announced by Lenovo on June 30, 2008. While the IdeaCentre line consists entirely o ...
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
on 1 November 1984 as Legend by a team of engineers led by
Liu Chuanzhi
Liu Chuanzhi (; born 29 April 1944) is a Chinese entrepreneur. Liu is the founder of Lenovo, the world's largest personal computer vendor by unit sales. He remains one of the leaders of the company.
Business activities
Lenovo
By the early ...
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
s, the company migrated towards manufacturing and marketing computers. Lenovo grew to become the market leader in China and raised nearly
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
30 million in an
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...
on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Since the 1990s, Lenovo has increasingly diversified from the personal computer market and made a number of corporate acquisitions, with the most notable being acquiring and integrating most of IBM's personal computer business and its x86-based server business as well as creating its own
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
.
Lenovo has operations in over 60 countries and sells its products in around 180 countries. It was incorporated in Hong Kong, with global headquarters in Beijing, and operational centres in Singapore and Morrisville,
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
, US. It has research centres in Beijing,
Chengdu
Chengdu (, ; simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese pro ...
Kanagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanag ...
, Japan), Singapore,
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
,
Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...
, and Morrisville, and also has Lenovo NEC Holdings, a joint venture with
NEC
is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
that produces personal computers for the Japanese market.
History
1984–1993: Founding and early history
Liu Chuanzhi
Liu Chuanzhi (; born 29 April 1944) is a Chinese entrepreneur. Liu is the founder of Lenovo, the world's largest personal computer vendor by unit sales. He remains one of the leaders of the company.
Business activities
Lenovo
By the early ...
and his group of ten experienced
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
s, teaming up with Danny Lui, officially founded Lenovo in Beijing on November 1, 1984, with 200,000 yuan. The Chinese government approved Lenovo's incorporation on the same day. Jia Xufu (贾续福), one of the founders of Lenovo, indicated that the first meeting in preparation for starting the company was held on October 17 the same year. Eleven people, the entirety of the initial staff, attended. Each of the founders was a member of the Institute of Computing Technology of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...
(CAS). The 200,000 yuan used as start-up capital was approved by Zeng Maochao (曾茂朝). The name for the company agreed upon at this meeting was the Chinese Academy of Sciences Computer Technology Research Institute New Technology Development Company.
The organizational structure of the company was established in 1985 after the Chinese New Year. It included technology, engineering, administrative, and office departments. The group first attempted to import televisions but failed. It rebuilt itself as a company doing quality checks on computers. It also tried and failed to market a digital watch.
In May 1988, Lenovo placed its first recruitment advertisement on the front page of the ''China Youth News''. Such ads were quite rare in China at the time. Out of the 500 respondents, 280 were selected to take a written employment exam. 120 of these candidates were interviewed in person. Although interviewers initially only had authority to hire 16 people, 58 were given offers. The new staff included 18 people with graduate degrees, 37 with undergraduate degrees, and three students with no university-level education.
Yang Yuanqing
Yang Yuanqing (, born 12 November 1964) is a Chinese business executive and philanthropist who is the current chairman and CEO of Lenovo.
Early life and education
Yang was born on 12 November 1964 to parents both educated as surgeons. He spent ...
, the current chairman and CEO of Lenovo, was among that group.
Liu Chuanzhi received government permission to form a subsidiary in Hong Kong and to move there along with five other employees. Liu's father, already in Hong Kong along with Lui, furthered his son's ambitions through mentoring and facilitating loans. Liu moved to Hong Kong in 1988. To save money during this period, Liu and his co-workers walked instead of taking public transportation. To keep up appearances, they rented hotel rooms for meetings.
In 1990, Lenovo started to manufacture and market computers using its own brand name. Some of the company's early successes included the KT8920 mainframe computer. It also developed a circuit board that allowed IBM-compatible personal computers to process Chinese characters.
1994–1998: IPO, second offerings and bond sales
Lenovo (known at the time as Legend) became publicly traded after a 1994 Hong Kong
IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
that raised nearly at per share. Prior to the IPO, many analysts were optimistic about Lenovo. On its first day of trading, the company's stock price hit a high of and closed at suggesting an initial under-valuing of the company. Proceeds from the offering were used to finance sales offices in Europe, North America and Australia, to expand and improve production and research and development, and to increase working capital.
By 1996, Lenovo was the market leader in China and began selling its own laptop. By 1998 it held 43 percent of the domestic computer market share in China, selling approximately one million computers.
Lenovo released its Tianxi () computer in 1998. Designed to make it easy for inexperienced Chinese consumers to use computers and access the internet, one of its most important features was a button that instantly connected users to the internet and opened the Web browser. It was co-branded with
China Telecom
China Telecom Corp., Ltd. is a Chinese telecommunications company. It is one of the red chip listed companies of state-owned China Telecommunications Corporation. Its H shares have been traded on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong since 15 Nove ...
and it was bundled with one year of Internet service. The Tianxi was released in 1998. It was the result of two years of research and development. It had a pastel-colored, shell-shaped case and a seven-port USB hub under its screen. As of 2000, the Tianxi was the best-selling computer in Chinese history. It sold more than 1,000,000 units in 2000 alone.
1999–2010: IBM purchase and sale of smartphone division
To fund its continued growth, Lenovo issued a secondary offering of 50 million shares on the Hong Kong market in March 2000 and raised about . It rebranded to the name Lenovo in 2003 and began making acquisitions to expand the company.
Lenovo acquired IBM's personal computer business in 2005, including the
ThinkPad
ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design la ...
laptop and ThinkCentre desktop lines. Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's personal computer division accelerated access to foreign markets while improving both Lenovo's branding and technology. Lenovo paid for IBM's computer business and assumed an additional of IBM's debt. This acquisition made Lenovo the third-largest computer maker worldwide by volume.
Lenovo's purchase of the Think line from IBM also led to the creation of the IBM/Lenovo partnership which works together in the creation of Think-line of products sold by Lenovo.
About the purchase of IBM's personal computer division,
Liu Chuanzhi
Liu Chuanzhi (; born 29 April 1944) is a Chinese entrepreneur. Liu is the founder of Lenovo, the world's largest personal computer vendor by unit sales. He remains one of the leaders of the company.
Business activities
Lenovo
By the early ...
said in 2012: "We benefited in three ways from the IBM acquisition. We got the ThinkPad brand, IBM's more advanced PC manufacturing technology and the company's international resources, such as its global sales channels and operation teams. These three elements have shored up our sales revenue in the past several years." The employees of the division, including those who developed ThinkPad laptops and Think Centre desktops, became employees of Lenovo.
Despite Lenovo acquiring the "Think" brand from IBM, IBM still plays a key indirect, background role in the design and production of the Think line of products. IBM today is responsible for overseeing servicing and repair centers and is considered an authorized distributor and refurbisher of the Think line of products produced by Lenovo.
IBM also acquired a 18.9% share of Lenovo in 2005 as part of Lenovo's purchase of IBM's personal computing division. In the years following the deal IBM sold their stake in Lenovo, with the final sale in 2011 completing their divestment.
Mary Ma
Mary Ma or Ma Xuezheng (; 1952 or 1953 – 31 August 2019) was a Chinese businesswoman and investor. She served as chief financial officer of the computer maker Lenovo, and played a key role in the company's acquisition of IBM's personal compute ...
, Lenovo's chief financial officer from 1990 to 2007, was in charge of investor relations. Under her leadership, Lenovo successfully integrated Western-style accountability into its corporate culture. Lenovo's emphasis on transparency earned it a reputation for the best corporate governance among mainland Chinese firms. While Hong Kong-listed firms were only required to issue financial reports twice per year, Lenovo followed the international norm of issuing quarterly reports. Lenovo created an audit committee and a compensation committee with non-management directors. The company started roadshows twice per year to meet institutional investors. Ma organized the first-ever investor relations conference held in mainland China. The conference was held in Beijing in 2002 and televised on China Central Television (CCTV). Liu and Ma co-hosted the conference and both gave speeches on corporate governance.
Lenovo sold its smartphone and tablet division in 2008 for in order to focus on personal computers and then paid US$200 million to buy it back in November 2009. , the mobile division ranked third in terms of unit share in China's mobile handset market. Lenovo invested in a fund dedicated to providing seed funding for mobile application development for its LeGarden online
app store
An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...
. As of 2010, LeGarden had more than 1,000 programs available for the LePhone. At the same time, LeGarden counted 2,774 individual developers and 542 developer companies as members.
2011–2013: Re-entering smartphone market and other ventures
On January 27, 2011, Lenovo formed a joint venture to produce personal computers with Japanese electronics firm
NEC
is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
. The companies said in a statement that they would establish a new company called Lenovo
NEC
is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
Holdings, to be registered in the Netherlands. NEC received US$175 million in Lenovo stock. Lenovo was to own a 51% stake in the joint venture, while NEC would have 49%. Lenovo has a five-year option to expand its stake in the joint venture.
This joint venture was intended to boost Lenovo's worldwide sales by expanding its presence in Japan, a key market for personal computers. NEC spun off its personal computer business into the joint venture. As of 2010, NEC controlled about 20% of Japan's market for personal computers while Lenovo had a 5% share. Lenovo and NEC also agreed to explore cooperating in other areas such as servers and tablet computers.
Roderick Lappin, chairman of the Lenovo–NEC joint venture, told the press that the two companies will expand their co-operation to include the development of tablet computers.
In June 2011, Lenovo announced that it planned to acquire control of
Medion
Medion AG is a German consumer electronics company, and a subsidiary of Chinese multinational technology company Lenovo. The company operates in Europe, Turkey, Asia-Pacific, United States and Australia regions. The company's main products are ...
, a German electronics manufacturing company. Lenovo said the acquisition would double its share of the German computer market, making it the third-largest vendor by sales (after Acer and Hewlett-Packard). The deal, which closed in the third quarter of the same year, was claimed by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' as "the first in which a Chinese company acquired a well-known German company."
This acquisition will give Lenovo 14% of the German computer market. Gerd Brachmann, chairman of Medion, agreed to sell two-thirds of his 60 percent stake in the company. He will be paid in cash for 80 percent of the shares and will receive 20 percent in Lenovo stock. That would give him about one percent of Lenovo.
In September 2012, Lenovo agreed to acquire the
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
-based electronics company Digibras, which sells products under the brand-name CCE, for a base price of 300 million reals (US$148 million) in a combination of stock and cash. An additional payment of 400 million reals was made dependent upon performance benchmarks. Prior to its acquisition of CCE, Lenovo already established a $30 million factory in Brazil, but Lenovo's management had felt that they needed a local partner to maximize regional growth. Lenovo cited their desire to take advantage of increased sales due to the 2014 World Cup that would be hosted by Brazil and the 2016 Summer Olympics and CCE's reputation for quality. Following the acquisition, Lenovo announced that its subsequent acquisitions would be concentrated in software and services.
In September 2012, Lenovo agreed to acquire the United States-based software company Stoneware, in its first software acquisition. The transaction was expected to close by the end of 2012; no financial details have been disclosed. Lenovo said that the company was acquired in order to gain access to new technology and that Stoneware is not expected to significantly affect earnings. More specifically, Stoneware was acquired to further Lenovo's efforts to improve and expand it cloud-computing services. For the two years prior to its acquisition, Stoneware partnered with Lenovo to sell its software. During this period Stoneware's sales doubled. Stoneware was founded in 2000. As of September 2012, Stoneware is based in Carmel, Indiana and has 67 employees.
Lenovo re-entered the smartphone market in 2012 and quickly became the largest vendor of
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s in mainland China. Entry into the smartphone market was paired with a change of strategy from "the one-size-fits-all" to a diverse portfolio of devices. These changes were driven by the popularity of Apple's iPhone and Lenovo's desire to increase its market share in mainland China. Lenovo surpassed
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...
to become the No. 2 provider of smartphones in the domestic Chinese market in 2012. However, with approximately 100 smartphone brands sold in China, this only equated to a 10.4% market share.
In May 2012, Lenovo announced an investment of US$793 million in the construction of a mobile phone manufacturing and R&D facility in
Wuhan
Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city an ...
,
Hubei
Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The ...
.
In 2013, Lenovo created a joint venture with EMC named LenovoEMC. The venture took over Iomega's business and rebranded all of Iomega's products under the LenovoEMC brand, and designed products for small and medium-sized businesses that could not afford enterprise-class data storage. Lenovo has since retired all of the LenovoEMC products on their product page advising that the products are no longer available for purchase on lenovo.com.
2014–present: Purchase of IBM server lines and other acquisitions
IBM sold its x86-based server lines, including
IBM System x
System x is a line of x86 servers produced by IBM – and later by Lenovo – as a sub-brand of IBM's ''System'' brand, alongside IBM Power Systems, IBM System z and IBM System Storage. In addition, IBM System x was the main component of t ...
and IBM Blade Center, to Lenovo in 2014. Lenovo says it will gain access to more enterprise customers, improve its profit margins, and develop a closer relationship with Intel, the maker of most server processors, through its acquisition of IBM's x86-based server business. On 1 October 2014, Lenovo closed its acquisition of IBM's server division, with the final price put at $2.1 billion. Lenovo said this acquisition came in at a price lower than the previously announced $2.3 billion partially because of a change in the value of IBM inventories. The deal has been already approved by Europe, China and the United States. The United States Department of Treasury
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS, commonly pronounced "Cifius" ) is an inter-agency committee of the United States government that reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. compani ...
(CFIUS) was reportedly the last hurdle for Lenovo, since the United States has the strictest policies. According to Timothy Prickett-Morgan from Enterprise Tech, the deal still awaits "approval of regulators in China, the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
, and Canada".
After closing, Lenovo said that its goal was to become the world's largest maker of servers. Lenovo also announced plans to start integrating IBM's workforce. The acquisition added about 6,500 new employees to Lenovo. Lenovo said that it has no immediate intent to cut jobs. Lenovo said that positions in research and development and customer-facing roles such as marketing would be "100% protected", but expected "rationalization" of its supply chain and procurement.
On 29 January 2014, Google announced it would sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for US$2.91 billion. As of February 2014, Google owned about 5.94% of Lenovo's stock. The deal included smartphone lines like the Moto X,
Moto G
Motorola Moto is a range of Android mobile devices manufactured by Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Lenovo. The Moto brand is also used and marketed for certain public-safety products from Motorola Solutions and by Motorola brand licensees on ce ...
, Droid Turbo, and the future Motorola Mobility product roadmap, while Google retained the Advanced Technologies & Projects unit and all but 2,000 of the company's patents. Lenovo received royalty free licenses to all the patents retained by Google. Lenovo received approval from the European Union for its acquisition of Motorola in June 2014. The acquisition was completed on 30 October 2014. Motorola Mobility remained headquartered in Chicago, and continued to use the Motorola brand, but Liu Jun, president of Lenovo's mobile device business, became the head of the company.
In April 2014, Lenovo purchased a portfolio of patents from
NEC
is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
related to mobile technology. These included over 3,800 patent families in countries around the world. The purchase included standards-essential patents for 3G and LTE cellular technologies and other patents related to smartphones and tablets.
In May 2015, Lenovo revealed a new logo at Lenovo Tech World in Beijing, with the slogan "Innovation Never Stands Still" (). Lenovo's new logo, created by Saatchi, can be changed by its advertising agencies and sales partners, within restrictions, to fit the context. It has a lounging "e" and is surrounded by a box that can be changed to use a relevant scene, solid color, or photograph. Lenovo's Chief Marketing Officer David Roman said, "When we first started looking at it, it wasn't about just a change in typography or the look of the logo. We asked 'If we really are a net-driven, customer-centric company, what should the logo look like?' We came up with the idea of a digital logo first ..designed to be used on the internet and adaptable to context."
In early June 2015, Lenovo announced plans to sell up to US$650 million in five-year bonds denominated in Chinese yuan. The bonds were sold in Hong Kong with coupon ranging from 4.95% to 5.05%. This is only the second sale of bonds in Lenovo's history. Financial commentators noted that Lenovo was paying a premium to list the bonds in yuan given relatively low costs for borrowing in US dollars.
Lenovo said that its x86 servers will be available to all its channel partners. Lenovo plans to cut prices on x86 products in order to gain market share. This goes in alliance with IBM's vision of the future around cloud technologies and their own POWER processor architecture.
Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's businesses is arguably one of the greatest case studies on merging massive international enterprises. Though this acquisition in 2005 ultimately resulted in success, the integration of the businesses had a difficult and challenging beginning. Lenovo had employees from different cultures, different backgrounds, and different languages. These differences caused misunderstandings, hampering trust and the ability to build a new corporate culture. At the end of its first two years, Lenovo Group had met many of its original challenges, including integrating two disparate cultures in the newly formed company, maintaining the Think brand image for quality and innovation, and improving supply chain and manufacturing efficiencies. However, Lenovo had failed to meet a key objective of the merger: leveraging the combined strength of the two companies to grow volume and market share. In order to achieve success, Lenovo embraced diversify at multiple levels- business model, culture, and talent. By 2015, Lenovo grew into the world's number 1 PC maker, number 3 smartphone manufacturer and number 3 in the production of tablet computers.
In March 2017, Lenovo announced it was partnering with Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based software storage virtualization company
DataCore
DataCore, also known as DataCore Software, is a developer of software-defined storage based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. The company is a pioneer in the development of SAN virtualization technology, and offers software-defined sto ...
to add DataCore's parallel I/O-processing software to Lenovo's storage devices. The servers were reportedly designed to outperform
Storage Area Network
A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access data storage devices, such as disk arrays and tape libraries from ser ...
(SAN) SAN arrays.
In 2017, Lenovo formed a joint venture with Fujitsu and the
Development Bank of Japan
is a Japanese development bank incorporated on 1 October 2008 under the Development Bank of Japan Inc. Law (Law No. 85 of 2007). Current ownership structure of DBJ is solely owned by the Government of Japan through the Minister of Finance
A ...
(DBJ). In the joint venture, Fujitsu would sell Lenovo a 51% stake in Fujitsu Client Computing Limited. DBJ would acquire a 5% stake.
In September 2018, Lenovo and
NetApp
NetApp, Inc. is an American hybrid cloud data services and data management company headquartered in San Jose, California. It has ranked in the Fortune 500 from 2012–2021. Founded in 1992 with an IPO in 1995, NetApp offers cloud data service ...
announced about strategic partnership and joint venture in China. As part of strategic partnership Lenovo started two new lines of storage systems: DM-Series and DE-Series. Both storage systems using Lenovo hardware and NetApp software: DM-Series using
ONTAP
ONTAP or Data ONTAP or Clustered Data ONTAP (cDOT) or Data ONTAP 7-Mode is NetApp's proprietary operating system used in storage disk arrays such as NetApp FAS and AFF, ONTAP Select, and Cloud Volumes ONTAP. With the release of version 9.0, Net ...
OS and DE-Series SANtricity OS.
In 2018, Lenovo became the world's largest provider for the
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non- distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these updates always coinci ...
Trolls World Tour
''Trolls World Tour'' (often named as ''Trolls 2: World Tour'') is a 2020 American computer-animated musical comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures, based on the Good Luck Trolls dolls created by ...
.
On 12 January 2021, Lenovo filed an application to issue Chinese depositary receipts, representing newly issued ordinary shares, and to list them on the Science and Technology Innovation Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
In April 2021, Lenovo was reorganized into three divisions: The Intelligent Devices Group for PCs, Smartphones, Smart Collaboration products, Augmented and Virtual Reality solutions and Internet of Things devices, the Infrastructure Solutions Group (formally known as Data Center Group) for smart infrastructure solutions, and the Solutions and Services Group focused on services and industry-specific products. That year, the company hit $60 billion in annual revenues.
On 8 October 2021, Lenovo withdrew its application to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange just days after it had been accepted by the exchange, citing the possibility of the validity of financial information in its prospectus lapsing as the reason. The price of the company's shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange dropped by over 17% following the news, which was its biggest intraday decline in over a decade.
Name
"Lenovo" is a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsLatin ablative for "new". The Chinese name () means "association" (as in "association of ideas"), "associative thinking", or "connected thinking". It also implies creativity. "Lianxiang" was first used to refer to a layout of
Chinese typewriter
A Chinese typewriter is a typewriter that can type Chinese script. Early European typewriters began appearing in the early 19th century. However, as the Chinese language uses a logographic writing system, fitting thousands of Chinese characters o ...
s in the 1950s organized into groups of common words and phrases rather than the standard dictionary layout.
For the first 20 years of its existence, the company's English name was "Legend". In 2002,
Yang Yuanqing
Yang Yuanqing (, born 12 November 1964) is a Chinese business executive and philanthropist who is the current chairman and CEO of Lenovo.
Early life and education
Yang was born on 12 November 1964 to parents both educated as surgeons. He spent ...
decided to abandon the Legend English name to expand beyond the Chinese home market. "Legend" was already in use worldwide by many businesses whose products and services may or may not have to do with technology, making it impossible to register in many jurisdictions outside China. In April 2003, the company publicly announced its new English name, "Lenovo", with an advertising campaign including huge billboards and primetime television ads. Lenovo spent 18 million
RMB
The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 2022. ...
on an eight-week television advertising campaign. The billboards showed the Lenovo logo against blue sky with a slogan that read, "Transcendence depends on how you think." By the end of 2003, Lenovo had spent a total of 200 million RMB on rebranding.
Products and services
Lenovo is a manufacturer of personal computers, smartphones, televisions, and wearable devices. Some of the company's earliest products included the KT8920 mainframe computer and a circuit board that allowed IBM-compatible personal computers to process Chinese characters. One of its first computers was the Tianxi (), released in 1998 in the Chinese market. It became the best selling computer in Chinese history in 2000.
Personal and business computing
Lenovo markets the
ThinkPad
ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design la ...
,
IdeaPad
IdeaPad (stylized as IDEAPΛD and formerly ideapad) is a line of consumer-oriented laptop computers designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo. The IdeaPad mainly competes against computers such as Acer's Aspire, Dell's Inspiron and XPS, HP ...
,
Yoga
Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...
, Legion and Xiaoxin (; Chinese market only) lines of laptops, as well as the
IdeaCentre
The IdeaCentre is a line of consumer-oriented desktop computers designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo. The first IdeaCentre desktop, the IdeaCentre K210, was announced by Lenovo on June 30, 2008. While the IdeaCentre line consists entirely o ...
and ThinkCentre lines of desktops. It expanded significantly in 2005 through its acquisition of IBM's personal computer business, including its ThinkPad and ThinkCentre lines. As of January 2013, shipments of THINK-branded computers have doubled since Lenovo's takeover of the brand, with profit margins thought to be above 5%. Lenovo aggressively expanded the THINK brand away from traditional laptop computers in favor of tablets and hybrid devices such as the ThinkPad Tablet 2, ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad 8,
ThinkPad Helix
Lenovo ThinkPad Helix refers to two generations of 2-in-1 convertible tablets that can be used as both a conventional ultrabook and a tablet computer. The first-generation Helix was announced at the 2013 International CES and was released on 21 M ...
, and ThinkPad Twist; the shift came as a response to the growing popularity of mobile devices, and the release of
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
in October 2012. Lenovo achieved significant success with this high-value strategy and in 2013 controlled more than 40% of the market for Windows computers priced above $900 in the United States.
ThinkPad
The ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented
laptop computer
A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
s known for their boxy black design, modeled after a traditional Japanese ''
bento
A is the Japanese iteration of a single-portion take-out or home-packed meal, often for lunch. Outside Japan, it is common in other East and Southeast Asian culinary styles, especially within Chinese, Korean, Singaporean cuisines and more, ...
''. The ThinkPad was originally an IBM product developed at the Yamato Facility in Japan by ; they have since been developed, manufactured and sold by both IBM and Lenovo after early 2005, following its acquisition of IBM's
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
division. The ThinkPad has been used in space and were the only laptops certified for use on the
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...
.
ThinkCentre
The ThinkCentre is a line of business-oriented desktop computers which was introduced in 2003 by IBM and since has been produced and sold by Lenovo since 2005. ThinkCentre computers typically include mid-range to high-end processors, options for discrete graphics cards, and multi-monitor support. Similar to the ThinkPad line of computers, there have been budget lines of ThinkCentre branded computers in the past. Some examples of this include: M55e series, A50 series, M72 series. These "budget" lines are typically "thin clients" however, meaning they are not standalone computers, rather, they are access points to a central server.
ThinkServer, followed by ThinkSystem
The ThinkServer product line began with the TS100 from Lenovo. The server was developed under agreement with IBM, by which Lenovo would produce single-socket and dual-socket servers based on IBM's xSeries technology. An additional feature of the server design was a support package aimed at small businesses. The focus of this support package was to provide small businesses with software tools to ease the process of server management and reduce dependence on IT support.
On June 20, 2017, Lenovo's Data Center Group relaunched the ThinkServer product line as ThinkSystem, which consisted of 17 new machine type models, in the catalog formate containing form factors such as Tower, 1U/2U, Blades, Dense and 4U Mission Critical Intel-based servers. Also within this relaunch contained a portfolio of Storage Arrays and of Fibre Channel SAN Switches and Directors. To further incorporate industry-leading partnerships into its portfolio, Lenovo struck an agreement with the processor company, AMD, to be able to supply customers with a choice of options between both Intel and AMD powered appliances. In August, 2019, the first two ThinkSystem platforms were introduced to the market containing a single AMD EPYC processor, the SR635 (1U) and the SR655 (2U). Again, in May 2020, Lenovo DCG further expanded its AMD offerings to incorporate 2-proc systems, the SR645 and the SR665, continuing tio exemplify its approach to being the Most Trusted Data Center Advisor in the market.
ThinkStation
Lenovo ThinkStations are workstations designed for high-end computing. In 2008, IBM/Lenovo expanded the focus of its THINK brand to include workstations, with the ThinkStation S10 being the first model released.
ThinkVision displays
High-end monitors are marketed under the ThinkVision name. ThinkVision displays share a common design language with other THINK devices such as the
ThinkPad
ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design la ...
line of laptop computers and ThinkCentre line of desktop computers. At the 2014 International CES, Lenovo announced the ThinkVision Pro2840m, a 28-inch 4K display aimed at professionals. Lenovo also announced another 28-inch 4K touch-enabled device running Android that can function as an all-in-one PC or an external display for other devices.
At the 2016 International CES, Lenovo announced two displays with both USB-C and DisplayPort connectivity. The ThinkVision X24 Pro monitor is a 24-inch 1920 by 1080 pixel thin-bezel display that uses an IPS LCD panel. The ThinkVision X1 is a 27-inch 3840 by 2160 pixel thin-bezel display that uses a 10-bit panel with 99% coverage of the sRGB color gamut. The X24 includes a wireless charging base for mobile phones. The X1 is the first monitor to receive the TUV Eye-Comfort certification. Both monitors have HDMI 2.0 ports, support charging laptops, mobile phones, and other devices, and have Intel RealSense 3D cameras in order to support facial recognition. Both displays have dual-array microphones and 3-watt stereo speakers.
IdeaPad
The IdeaPad line of consumer-oriented
laptop computers
A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a Flip (form), clam shell Form factor (design), form factor with the computer scr ...
was introduced in January 2008. The IdeaPad is the result of Lenovo's own research and development; Unlike the ThinkPad line, its design and branding were not inherited from IBM nor are they designed/developed by IBM.
The IdeaPad's design language differs markedly from the
ThinkPad
ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design la ...
and has a more consumer-focused look and feel.
On September 21, 2016, Lenovo confirmed that their Yoga series is not meant to be compatible with
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
operating systems, that they know it is impossible to install Linux on some models, and that it is not supported. This came in the wake of media coverage of problems that users were having while trying to install
Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
on several Yoga models, including the 900 ISK2, 900 ISK For Business, 900S, and 710, which were traced back to Lenovo disabling and removing support for the
AHCI
The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard defined by Intel that specifies the register-level interface of Serial ATA (SATA) host controllers in a non-implementation-specific manner in its motherboard chipsets.
The ...
storage mode for the device's
Solid State Drive
A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It is ...
RAID
Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to:
Attack
* Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground
* Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business
* Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...
mode that is only supported by
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
drivers that come with the system. Lenovo has since released an alternative firmware that has restored the AHCI mode to the drive controller to allow installation of Linux operating systems.
IdeaCentre
All IdeaCentres are all-in-one machines, combining processor and monitor into a single unit. The desktops were described by HotHardware as being "uniquely designed". The first
IdeaCentre
The IdeaCentre is a line of consumer-oriented desktop computers designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo. The first IdeaCentre desktop, the IdeaCentre K210, was announced by Lenovo on June 30, 2008. While the IdeaCentre line consists entirely o ...
desktop
A desktop traditionally refers to:
* The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor)
Desktop may refer to various compu ...
, the IdeaCentre K210, was announced by Lenovo on 30 June 2008. While the IdeaCentre line consists only of desktops, it shares design elements and features with the
IdeaPad
IdeaPad (stylized as IDEAPΛD and formerly ideapad) is a line of consumer-oriented laptop computers designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo. The IdeaPad mainly competes against computers such as Acer's Aspire, Dell's Inspiron and XPS, HP ...
line. One such feature was Veriface facial recognition technology.
At CES 2011, Lenovo announced the launch of four IdeaCentre desktops: the A320, B520, B320, and C205. In the autumn of 2012, the firm introduced the more powerful IdeaCentre A720, with a 27-inch touchscreen display and running
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
. With a TV tuner and HDMI in, the A720 can also serve as a multimedia hub or home theater PC.
In 2013, Lenovo added a table computer to the IdeaCentre line. The
Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC
The Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon is a table PC released at the 2013 International CES as part of IdeaCentre brand. The Horizon has a 27-inch screen and is designed for multiple simultaneous users. It was designed specifically with tabletop gaming in ...
, introduced at the 2013
International CES
CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typ ...
is a 27-inch touchscreen computer designed to lay flat for simultaneous use by multiple people. Thanks to its use of Windows 8, the Horizon can also serve as a desktop computer when set upright.
Legion
Legion is a series of laptops and tablets from Lenovo targeting gaming performance. The first Legion brand laptops was revealed at CES 2017, the Legion Y520 and the Legion Y720. On June 6, 2017, a high-performance model, the Legion Y920, equipped with Intel's seventh-generation quad-core i7-7820HK and Nvidia GTX 1070 discrete graphics, was launched.
At
E3 2018
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 (E3 2018) was the 24th E3, during which hardware manufacturers, software developers, and publishers from the video game industry presented new and upcoming products to the attendees, primarily retailers a ...
, Lenovo announced three new laptops with new redesigned chassis, Y530, Y730 and Y7000.
In 2020, Lenovo launched Legion 3, 5, and 7, where Legion 7 is the highest specification of the series.
In 2021, Lenovo launched Legion 5 pro with AMD 5th series CPU and Nvidia 30,s GPU.
Smartphones
As of January 2013, Lenovo only manufactured phones that use the Android operating system from
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
. Numerous press reports indicated that Lenovo planned to release a phone running
Windows Phone 8
Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system from Microsoft. It was released on October 29, 2012, and, like its predecessor, it features a flat user interface based on the Metro design language. It was s ...
, According to J. D. Howard, a vice president at Lenovo's mobile division, the company would release a Windows Phone product if there is market demand.
Lenovo has implemented an aggressive strategy to replace
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, a ...
as Mainland China market's top smartphone vendor. It has spent $793.5 million in Wuhan in order to build a plant that can produce 30 to 40 million phones per year. Data from Analysys International shows that Lenovo experienced considerable growth in smartphone sales in China during 2012. Specifically, it saw its market share increase to 14.2% during 2012's third quarter, representing an increase when compared to 4.8% in the same quarter of 2011. IDC analysts said that Lenovo's success is due to its "aggressive ramping-up and improvements in channel partnerships". Analysys International analyst Wang Ying wrote, "Lenovo possesses an obvious advantage over rivals in terms of sales channels." The company's CEO, Yang Yuanqing, said, "Lenovo does not want to be the second player ... we want to be the best. Lenovo has the confidence to outperform Samsung and Apple, at least in the Chinese market."
According to IHS iSuppli, Lenovo was a top-three smartphone maker in China with a 16.5% market share in the first quarter of 2012. According to a May report released by IDC Lenovo ranks fourth in the global tablet market by volume. As of November 2012, Lenovo was the second largest seller of mobile phones in China when measured by volume.
In May 2013, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing indicated that the company had aimed to release smartphones in the United States within the next year. Later in October, Lenovo expressed interest in acquiring the Canadian smartphone maker
BlackBerry Ltd
BlackBerry Limited is a Canadian software company specializing in cybersecurity. Founded in 1984, it was originally known as Research In Motion (RIM). As RIM, it developed the BlackBerry brand of interactive pagers, smartphones, and tablets ...
. However, its attempt was reportedly blocked by the
Government of Canada
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...
, citing security concerns due to the use of BlackBerry devices by prominent members of the government. An official stated that "we have been pretty consistent that the message is Canada is open to foreign investment and investment from China in particular but not at the cost of compromising national security".
In January 2014, Lenovo announced a proposed deal to acquire Motorola Mobility to bolster its plans for the U.S. market.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
officially announced that Lenovo had become the hardware partner of
Windows Phone
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design l ...
platform at the Mobile World Congress 2014. In January 2016, Lenovo announced at CES that the company would be producing the first
Project Tango
Tango (formerly named Project Tango, while in testing) was an augmented reality computing platform, developed and authored by the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP), a skunkworks division of Google. It used computer vision to enable mob ...
phone.
Lenovo plus Motorola was the 3rd largest producer of smartphones by volume in the world between 2011 and 2014. Since Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, the combined global market share of Lenovo plus Motorola has fallen from 7.2% in 2014 to 3.9% in the third quarter of 2016. A number of factors have been cited as the cause of this reduced demand, including the fact that Lenovo relied heavily on carriers to sell its phones, its phones lacked strong branding and unique features to distinguish them in the competitive Chinese market where a weak economy and saturated market is slowing demand and the culture clash between a more hierarchical PC company and the need to be nimble to sell rapidly-evolving smartphones. In response to the weak sales, Lenovo announced in August 2015 that it would lay off 3,200 employees, mostly in its Motorola smartphone business.
In the reorganization which followed, Lenovo was uncertain how to brand its Motorola smartphones. In November 2015, members of Lenovo management made statements that Lenovo would use the Motorola brand for all its smartphones. Then, in January 2016, Lenovo announced that it would be eliminating the Motorola brand in favor of "Moto by Lenovo". The company reversed course in March 2017 and announced that the Motorola brand name would be used in all regions in future products. "In 2016, we just finished transforming ourselves," Motorola Chairman and President Aymar de Lencquesaing said in an interview, "We have clarity on how we present ourselves."
Smart televisions
In November 2011, Lenovo said it would soon unveil a
smart television
A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features, which allows users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart TVs are a techno ...
product called LeTV, expected for release in the first quarter of 2012. "The PC, communications and TV industries are currently undergoing a "smart" transformation. In the future, users will have many smart devices and will desire an integrated experience of hardware, software and cloud services." Liu Jun, president of Lenovo's mobile-Internet and digital-home-business division. In June 2013 Lenovo announced a partnership with Sharp to produce smart televisions. In March 2014, Lenovo announced that it projected smart television sales surpassing one million units for 2014. The same month Lenovo released its flagship S9 Smart TV.
Wearables
Rumors that Lenovo was developing a wearable device were confirmed in October 2014 after the company submitted a regulatory finding to the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
. The device, branded a "Smartband", has a battery life of seven days. It has an optical heart-rate monitor and can be used to track distance and time spent running and calories burned. It can also notify the user of incoming calls and texts. It can also unlock computers without the use of a password. The Smartband went on sale in October 2014. Lenovo started offering the device for sale on its website without a formal product announcement.
IoT / Smart Home
In 2015 Lenovo launched a strategic cooperation with IngDan (), a subsidiary of Chinese electronics e-commerce company Cogobuy Group, to penetrate into the intelligent hardware sector. Lenovo wanted to procure High-Tech hardware in the then newly emerging Internet of Things (IoT) economy and formed a strategic partnership with Cogobuy in which it previously primarily bought IC components from. Cogobuy's supply chain was utilised by Lenovo to procure consumer devices and bridge gaps in their
proprietary hardware
Proprietary hardware is computer hardware whose interface is controlled by the proprietor, often under patent or trade-secret protection.
Historically, most early computer hardware was designed as proprietary until the 1980s, when IBM PC changed ...
and software development. At the IFA 2018, Lenovo launched several
smart home
Smart or SMART may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Smart'' (Hey! Say! JUMP album), 2014
* Smart (Hotels.com), former mascot of Hotels.com
* ''Smart'' (Sleeper album), 1995 debut album by Sleeper
* '' SMart'', a children's television se ...
products.
Lenovo Connect
At the Mobile World Congress in 2016, Lenovo introduced Lenovo Connect, a wireless roaming service. This service works across devices, networks, and borders for customers in China and
EMEA
EMEA is a shorthand designation meaning Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The acronym is used by institutions and governments, as well as in marketing and business when referring to this region: it is a shorthand way of referencing the two ...
(Europe, the Middle East and Africa). Lenovo Connect eliminates the need to buy new
SIM card
A typical SIM card (mini-SIM with micro-SIM cutout)
A GSM mobile phone
file:Simkarte NFC SecureElement.jpg, T-Mobile nano-SIM card with NFC capabilities in the SIM tray of an iPhone 6s
file:Tf sim both sides.png, A TracFone Wireless SIM card ha ...
s when crossing borders. Lenovo Connect started service for phones and select ThinkPad laptops in China in February 2016.
Operations
Lenovo's principal facilities are in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
,
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
, and
Morrisville, North Carolina
Morrisville is a town located primarily in Wake County, North Carolina, United States (a small portion extends into neighboring Durham County). The population was 18,576 at the 2010 census. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the town's population t ...
, United States, with research centres in Beijing, Singapore, Morrisville,
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
,
Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...
,
Xiamen
Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an ...
,
Chengdu
Chengdu (, ; simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese pro ...
,
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
,
Wuhan
Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city an ...
Kanagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanag ...
, Japan). Lenovo operates manufacturing facilities in Chengdu and Hefei in China, and in Japan. A global
flagship store
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...
opened in Beijing in February 2013.
Lenovo's manufacturing operations are a departure from the usual industry practice of outsourcing to contract manufacturers. Lenovo instead focuses on
vertical integration
In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the suppl ...
in order to avoid excessive reliance on
original equipment manufacturers
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
and to keep down costs. Speaking on this topic, Yang Yuanqing said, "Selling PCs is like selling fresh fruit. The speed of innovation is very fast, so you must know how to keep up with the pace, control inventory, to match supply with demand and handle very fast turnover." Lenovo benefited from its vertical integration after flooding affected hard-drive manufacturers in Thailand in 2011, as the company could continue manufacturing operations by shifting production towards products for which hard drives were still available.
Lenovo began to emphasize vertical integration after a meeting in 2009 in which CEO Yang Yuanqing, and the head of Lenovo's supply chain, analyzed the costs versus the benefits of in-house manufacturing, and decided to make at least 50% of Lenovo's manufacturing in-house. Lenovo Chief Technology Officer George He said that vertical integration is having an important role in product development. He stated, "If you look at the industry trends, most innovations for" PCs, smartphones, tablets and smart TVs are related to innovation of key components—display, battery and storage. Differentiation of key parts is so important. So we started investing more ... and working very closely with key parts suppliers." Previously, lack of integration due to numerous foreign acquisitions and an excessive number of "key performance indicators" (KPIs) was making Lenovo's expansion expensive and creating unacceptably slow delivery times to end-customers. Lenovo responded by reducing the number of KPIs from 150 to 5, offering intensive training to managers, and working to create a global Lenovo culture. Lenovo also doubled-down on vertical integration and manufacturing near target markets in order to cut costs at time when its competitors were making increased use of outsourcing off-shoring. By 2013, Lenovo ranked 20th on Gartner's list of top 50 supply chains, whereas in 2010 the company was unranked.
In 2012, Lenovo partially moved production of its ThinkPad line of computers to Japan. ThinkPads will be produced by NEC in
Yamagata Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Yamagata Prefecture has a population of 1,079,950 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 9,325 km² (3,600 sq mi). Yamagata Prefecture borders Akita Prefecture to the nor ...
. , president of Lenovo Japan, said, "As a Japanese, I am glad to see the return to domestic production and the goal is to realize full-scale production as this will improve our image and make the products more acceptable to Japanese customers."
In October 2012, Lenovo announced that it would start assembling computers in Whitsett,
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
. Production of desktop and laptop computers, including the
ThinkPad Helix
Lenovo ThinkPad Helix refers to two generations of 2-in-1 convertible tablets that can be used as both a conventional ultrabook and a tablet computer. The first-generation Helix was announced at the 2013 International CES and was released on 21 M ...
began in January 2013. , 115 workers were employed at this facility. Lenovo has been in Whitsett since 2008, where it also has centers for logistics, customer service, and return processing.
In 2015, Lenovo and Hong Kong
Cyberport
Cyberport is a business park in Southern District, Hong Kong consisting of four office buildings, a hotel, and a retail entertainment complex. It describes itself as a digital technology community with over 1,800 (800 on-site and 1,0 ...
Management Company Limited, a government-sponsored business park for technology firms, reached a deal to "jointly build a cloud service and product research and development center". Lenovo's Asia Pacific data center will also be housed in Cyperport.
Lenovo assembles smartphones in Chennai, India through a contract manufacturing agreement with
Flextronics
Flex Ltd. (previously known as Flextronics International Ltd. or Flextronics) is an American Singaporean-domiciled multinational diversified manufacturing company. It is the third largest global electronics manufacturing services (EMS), origi ...
. In November 2015, Lenovo announced that it would start manufacturing computers in Pondicherry.
Accusations of slave labor by supplier
In August 2020, ''
The Intercept
''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing news website founded by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras and funded by billionaire eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Its current editor is Betsy Reed. The publication initially reporte ...
'' reported that Lenovo imported about 258,000 laptops from the Chinese manufacturer Hefei Bitland Information Technology, a company, among others, accused by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute of using Uyghur
forced labor
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
. In July 2020, the United States Commerce Department added 11 companies, including Hefei Bitland, implicated in human rights abuses on the
Entity List
The Entity List is a trade restriction list published by the United States Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), consisting of certain foreign persons, entities, or governments. Entities on the Entity List are subject to U ...
. Lenovo took some shipments out of the distribution, but other shipments were distributed to consumers.
In late July, Lenovo informed its customers it had stopped manufacturing with Bitland and was moving production of related devices to other suppliers.
Response to 2022 sanctions against Russia
During the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. ...
, Lenovo reportedly suspended shipping to Russia on or before February 25, 2022 and, although it didn't confirm the suspension, faced a domestic backlash from Internet users in China.
Corporate affairs
Alongside Beijing, the company has operational centres in Lorong Chuan, Singapore, and
Morrisville, North Carolina
Morrisville is a town located primarily in Wake County, North Carolina, United States (a small portion extends into neighboring Durham County). The population was 18,576 at the 2010 census. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the town's population t ...
Locations . Lenovo. Retrieved on 12 October 2012. "Executive Headquarters Morrisville 1009 Think Place Morrisville, NC 27560 USA" (near
Raleigh
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...
in the
Research Triangle
The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, are both common nicknames for a metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh and Durham and the town of Chapel Hill, home to ...
metropolitan area) in the United States.
McGregor
McGregor may refer to:
People
* McGregor (surname)
* Clan MacGregor, a Scottish highland clan
* McGregor W. Scott (born 1962), U.S. attorney
Characters
* Mr. McGregor, a fictional character from Peter Rabbit
Places
in Canada:
* McGregor Lake ...
p. 204 As of October 2012, the Morrisville facility has about 2,000 employees. Lenovo identifies its facilities in Beijing, Singapore, and Morrisville as its "key location addresses", where its principal operations occur. The company stated that "by foregoing a traditional headquarters model and focusing on centers of excellence around the world, Lenovo makes the maximum use of its resources to create the best products in the most efficient and effective way possible". The company's
registered office
A registered office is the official address of an incorporated company, association or any other legal entity. Generally it will form part of the public record and is required in most countries where the registered organization or legal entity ...
is on the 23rd floor of the Lincoln House building of the
Taikoo Place
Taikoo Place () is a commercial building complex located in Quarry Bay, east Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. It comprises grade A office towers, car parking, clubs, office apartment, parks, and shops to meet the needs from business people worldwide. ...
in
Quarry Bay
Quarry Bay is an List of buildings, sites, and areas in Hong Kong, area beneath Mount Parker (Hong Kong), Mount Parker in the Eastern District, Hong Kong, Eastern District of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. The western portion of the area was al ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
.
Previously the company's U.S. headquarters were in
Purchase
Purchasing is the process a business or organization uses to acquire goods or services to accomplish its goals. Although there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between ...
, Harrison, New York. About 70 people worked there. In 2006, Lenovo announced that it was consolidating its U.S. headquarters, a logistics facility in Boulder, Colorado, and a call center in
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...
, to a new facility in Morrisville. The company received offers of over $11 million in incentive funds from the local Morrisville, North Carolina, area and from the State of North Carolina on the condition that the company employs about 2,200 people.Hogan, Patrick. "Lenovo shifting U.S. headquarters to Morrisville, but will cut 300–350 Triangle jobs". ''
Triangle Business Journal
American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor News ...
''. Thursday 16 March 2006. Updated Friday 17 March 2006 p.1 . Retrieved on 12 October 2012.
In early 2016, Lenovo carried out a comprehensive restructuring of its business units.
Financials and market share
In the third quarter of 2020, Lenovo commands a leading market share of 25.7 percent of all PCs sold in the world.
In March 2013, Lenovo was included as a constituent stock in the Hang Seng Index. Lenovo replaced the unprofitable
Aluminum Corporation of China
Aluminum Corporation of China Limited (, known as Chalco), is a Chinese company listed in Hong Kong and in New York. A multinational aluminium company, its headquarters are in Beijing, People's Republic of China
China, officially the Pe ...
, a state-owned enterprise, on the list of 50 key companies on the Hong Kong stock exchange that constitute the Hang Seng Index. The inclusion of Lenovo and Tencent, China's largest internet firm, significantly increased the weight of the technology sector on the index. Being added to the Hang Seng Index was a significant boon for Lenovo and its shareholders as it widened the pool of investors willing to purchase Lenovo's stock. For instance, index funds pegged to the Hang Seng and pension funds that consider index inclusion now have the opportunity to invest in Lenovo. In November 2013 Lenovo reported that they had achieved double-digit market share in the United States for the first time.
investment firm
An investment company is a financial institution principally engaged in holding, managing and investing securities. These companies in the United States are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and must be registered under t ...
based in Beijing, bought 29% of Legend Holdings, the parent company of Lenovo, for ¥2.76 billion. , 65% of Lenovo stock was held by the general public, 29% by Legend Holdings, 5.8% by Yang Yuanqing, and 0.2% by other directors.
Responding to claims that Lenovo is a state-owned enterprise, CEO Yang Yuanqing said, "Our company is a 100% market oriented company. Some people have said we are a state-owned enterprise. It's 100% not true. In 1984 the Chinese Academy of Sciences only invested $25,000 in our company. The purpose of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to invest in this company was that they wanted to commercialize their research results. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is a pure research entity in China, owned by the government. From this point, you could say we're different from state-owned enterprises. Secondly, after this investment, this company is run totally by the founders and management team. The government has never been involved in our daily operation, in important decisions, strategic direction, nomination of the CEO and top executives and financial management. Everything is done by our management team."
As of 2014, the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...
, owns 11.7% of Lenovo and IBM owns 37.8%.
In early 2006, the U.S. State Department was harshly criticized for purchasing 16,000 computers from Lenovo. Critics argued that Lenovo was controlled by the Chinese government and a potential vehicle for espionage against the United States. Yang spoke out forcefully and publicly to defend Lenovo. He said, "We are not a government-controlled company." He pointed out that Lenovo pioneered China's transition to a market economy and that in the early 1990s had fought and beaten four state-owned enterprises that dominated the Chinese computer market. Those firms had the full backing of the state while Lenovo received no special treatment. The State Department deal went through. Yang worried that fears about Lenovo's supposed connections to the Chinese government would be an ongoing issue in the United States. Yang worked to ease worries by communicating directly with Congress.
Yang dramatically increased his ownership stake by acquiring 797 million shares in 2011. As of June 2011, Yang owned an 8 percent stake in Lenovo. He previously owned only 70 million shares. In a statement, Yang said, "While the transaction is a personal financial matter, I want to be very clear that my decision to make this investment is based on my strong belief in the company's very bright future. Our culture is built on commitment and ownership – we do what we say, and we own what we do. My decision to increase my holdings represents my steadfast belief in these principles."
Corporate culture
Lenovo's senior executives rotate between the three head offices at Beijing, Singapore, and Morrisville, as well as Lenovo's research and development centre in Yamato, Japan.
Leadership
Yang Yuanqing
Yang Yuanqing is the chairman and chief executive officer of Lenovo. One of his major achievements was leading Lenovo to become the best-selling personal computer brand in China since 1997. In 2001, '' Business Week'' named him one of Asia's rising stars in business. Yang was president and CEO of Lenovo until 2004, when Lenovo closed its acquisition of IBM's PC division, after which Yang was succeeded as Lenovo CEO by IBM's Stephen M. Ward, Jr. Ward was succeeded by
Bill Amelio
William J. "Bill" Amelio is an American business executive who was the CEO of Lenovo. He was also the CEO of Avnet.
Education
Amelio holds a master’s degree in Management from Stanford University, where he was a Sloan Fellow. He also earned a ...
on 20 December 2005. In February 2009, Yang replaced Amelio as CEO and has served in that capacity ever since. Yang was chairman of Lenovo's board from 2004 to 2008, and returned as chairman in 2012 alongside his role as CEO.
In 2012, Yang received a $3 million bonus as a reward for record profits, which he in turn redistributed to about 10,000 of Lenovo's employees. According to Lenovo spokesman, Jeffrey Shafer, Yang felt that it would be the right thing to, "redirect
he money
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' i ...
to the employees as a real tangible gesture for what they done." Shafer also said that Yang, who owns about eight percent of Lenovo's stock, "felt that he was rewarded well simply as the owner of the company". The bonuses were mostly distributed among staff working in positions such as production and reception who received an average of or about . This was almost equivalent to a monthly salary of an average worker in China. Yang made a similar gift of again in 2013.
According to Lenovo's annual report, Yang earned , including in bonuses, during the fiscal year that ended in March 2012.
In 2013, ''Barron's'' named Yang one of the "World's Best CEOs".
Liu Chuanzhi
Liu Chuanzhi is the founder and former chairman of Lenovo. Liu was trained as an engineer at a military college and later went on to work at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...
. Like many young people during the Cultural Revolution, Liu was denounced and sent to the countryside where he worked as a laborer on a rice farm. Liu claims Hewlett-Packard as a key source of inspiration. In an interview with ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
'' he stated that "Our earliest and best teacher was Hewlett-Packard." For more than ten years, Lenovo was Hewlett-Packard's distributor in China. In reference to Lenovo's later acquisition of IBM's personal computer unit Liu said, "I remember the first time I took part in a meeting of IBM agents. I was wearing an old business suit of my father's and I sat in the back row. Even in my dreams, I never imagined that one day we could buy the IBM PC business. It was unthinkable. Impossible."
Board of directors
In early 2013, Lenovo announced the addition of
Yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...
founder Jerry Yang to its board. Lenovo's CEO Yang Yuanqing said, "Jerry's appointment as an observer to our board furthers Lenovo's reputation as a transparent international company." Just prior to the appointment of Jerry Yang, Tudor Brown, the founder of British semiconductor design firm
ARM
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...
, was also appointed to Lenovo's board. Speaking of both men Yang Yuanqing said, "We believe that they will add a great deal to our strategic thinking, long-term direction and, ultimately, our ability to achieve our aspirations in the PC plus era."
Marketing and sponsorships
In 2009, Lenovo became the first personal computer manufacturer to divide countries into emerging markets and mature markets. Lenovo then developed a different set of strategies for each category. Lenovo's competitors have widely adopted the same approach In 2012, Lenovo made a major effort to expand its market share in developing economies such as Brazil and India through acquisitions and increased budgets for marketing and advertising.
Celebrity sponsorships and endorsements
In October 2013, Lenovo announced that it had hired American actor
Ashton Kutcher
Christopher Ashton Kutcher (; born February 7, 1978) is an American actor, producer, entrepreneur, and former model. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a People's Choice Award, and nominations for two Young Artist Awards, a ...
as a product engineer and spokesman. David Roman, Lenovo's chief marketing officer, said, "His partnership goes beyond traditional bounds by deeply integrating him into our organization as a product engineer. Ashton will help us break new ground by challenging assumptions, bringing a new perspective and contributing his technical expertise to Yoga Tablet and other devices."Ashton Kutcher joins Lenovo as product engineer . Usatoday.com (2013-10-30). Retrieved on 2013-12-08.Kobe Bryant became an official ambassador for
Lenovo smartphones
Lenovo smartphones are marketed as the "LePhone" in Mainland China and the "IdeaPhone" overseas. Motorola Mobility, ZUK Mobile and Medion, divisions of Lenovo, sell smartphones under their own brands. As of September 2015, Lenovo is in the proce ...
in China and
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
in early 2013. Bryant appeared in a social campaign titled "The Everyday Kobe Challenge" for the launch of Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines in the same year.
Sporting sponsorship
Lenovo was an official computer sponsor of the
2006 Winter Olympics
The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially the XX Olympic Winter Games ( it, XX Giochi olimpici invernali) and also known as Torino 2006, were a winter multi-sport event held from 10 to 26 February 2006 in Turin, Italy. This marked the second ...
in
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
. When asked about Lenovo's brand Yang Yuanqing said, "The Beijing Olympics were very good for brand awareness in countries like the US and Argentina, but not good enough." The NFL has been a Lenovo customer since 2007. In July 2012, Lenovo and the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL) announced that Lenovo had become the NFL's "Official Laptop, Desktop and Workstation Sponsor." Lenovo said that this was its largest sponsorship deal ever in the United States. NFL stars
Jerry Rice
Jerry Lee Rice (born October 13, 1962) is an American former professional football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 20 seasons. Known primarily as a member of the San Francisco 49ers, winning three championsh ...
,
DeAngelo Williams
DeAngelo Chondon Williams (born April 25, 1983) is a former American football running back and professional wrestler. He played college football at Memphis, and was drafted by the Carolina Panthers in the first round of the 2006 NFL Draft. He s ...
, and
Torry Holt
Torry Jabar Holt (born June 5, 1976) is a former professional American football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for eleven seasons. He was named to the Pro Bowl seven times and retired with the 10th most rec ...
were on hand for the announcement and a celebration with 1,500 Lenovo employees. Lenovo's sponsorship will last at least three years.
Lenovo also become technology partner for
Ducati Corse
Ducati Corse is the racing team division of Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. that deals with the firm's involvement in motorcycle racing. It is directed by Claudio Domenicali and is based in Borgo Panigale, Bologna.
More than one hundred people work ...
in MotoGP since 2018. And for the 2021 MotoGP it will become main sponsor for the Bolognese.
Lenovo is also an official partner of the NHL's
Carolina Hurricanes
The Carolina Hurricanes (colloquially known as the Canes) are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference ...
who play in nearby
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southe ...
.
Lenovo and
FC Internazionale
Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Football in Italy, Italian professional Association football, football ...
, in 2019, have signed a multi-year sponsorship agreement that makes Lenovo the Global Technology Partner of the Nerazzurri company. In May 2021, Lenovo and Motorola Mobility decided to celebrate with a limited edition of Razr 5G totally customized and produced in 2021 numbered pieces, to honor Inter who won their 19th Scudetto. In July 2021 there was the launch of the new Inter Home shirt for the 2021-22 season, they unveiled the introduction of Lenovo as a sponsor on the back of the shirt.
Television, internet, and other media
Lenovo used a short-film entitled ''The Pursuit'' in its "For Those Who Do" campaign launched in 2011. The film depicted a mysterious young woman using the IdeaPad Yoga 13 to stay one-step-ahead of her evil pursuers.
Martin Campbell
Martin Campbell (born 24 October 1943) is a New Zealand film and television director based in the United Kingdom. He is known for having directed '' The Mask of Zorro'' as well as the James Bond films '' GoldenEye'' and '' Casino Royale''. He ...
, who previously worked on action movies and James Bond films such as GoldenEye and the remake of Casino Royale, shot this film. Lenovo was the first Chinese company to make use of such marketing techniques.
In May 2015, Lenovo hosted its first ever "Tech World" conference in Beijing.ZUK, a separate company formed by Lenovo in 2014, announced several products at Tech World, These included slim power banks, 3D printers that can print food such as chocolate, an outdoor sound box, and a Wi-Fi based control system for home automation.
China
In its home market China, Lenovo has a vast distribution network designed to make sure that there is at least one shop selling Lenovo computers within 50 kilometers of nearly all consumers. Lenovo has also developed close relationships with its Chinese distributors, who are granted exclusive territories and only carry Lenovo products.
As of July 2013, Lenovo believes that urbanization initiatives being pushed by Premier Li Keqiang will allow it to sustain sales growth in China for the foreseeable future. Speaking at Lenovo's annual general meeting in Hong Kong in 2013, Yang Yuanqing said: "I believe urbanisation will help us further increase the overall omesticPC market." Yang also stressed the opportunity presented by the China's relatively low penetration rate of personal computers. Lenovo previously benefited from the Chinese government's rural subsidies, part of a wider economic stimulus initiative, designed to increase purchases of appliances and electronics. That program, which Lenovo joined in 2004, ended in 2011. Lenovo enjoys consistent price premiums over its traditional competitors in rural markets and a stronger local sales and service presence.
India
Lenovo has gained significant market share in India through bulk orders to large companies and government agencies. For example, the government of
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
ordered a million
ThinkPad
ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design la ...
's from IBM/Lenovo in 2012 and single-handedly made the firm a market leader. Lenovo distributes most of the personal computers it sells in India through five national distributors such as
Ingram Micro
Ingram Micro is an American distributor of information technology products and services. The company is based in Irvine, California, U.S. and has operations around the world.
History
Ingram Micro's origins trace back to the founding of distrib ...
and Redington.
Given that most smartphones and tablets are sold to individuals Lenovo is pursuing a different strategy making use of many small state-centric distributors. Amar Babu, Lenovo's managing director for India, said, "To reach out to small towns and the hinterland, we have tied up with 40 regional distributors. We want our distributors to be exclusive to us. We will, in turn, ensure they have exclusive rights to distribute Lenovo products in their catchment area." As of 2013, Lenovo had about 6,000 retailers selling smartphones and tablets in India. In February 2013, Lenovo established a relationship with Reliance Communications to sell smartphones. The smartphones carried by Reliance have dual-SIM capability and support both GSM and CDMA. Babu claims that the relative under penetration of smartphones in India represents an opportunity for Lenovo.
Lenovo has assembled a team of senior managers familiar with the Indian market, launched mobile phones at all price points there, and worked on branding to build market share. As of February 2014, Lenovo claims that its sales of smartphones in India have been increasing 100% per quarter while the market is only growing 15–20% over the same period. Lenovo did marketing tests of its smartphones in November 2012 in
Gujarat
Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
and some southern cities, where Lenovo already had a strong presence. Lenovo's strategy has been to create awareness, maintain a broad selection of phones at all price points, and develop distribution networks. Lenovo partnered with two national distributors and over 100 local distributors. As of February 2014, more than 7,000 retail outlets in India sold Lenovo smartphones. Lenovo has also partnered with HCL in order to set up 250 service centres in 110 cities.
In India, Lenovo grants distributors exclusive territories but allows them to sell computers from other companies. Lenovo uses its close relationships with distributors to gain
market intelligence
Market intelligence (MI) is gathering and analyzing information relevant to a company's market - trends, competitor and customer (existing, lost and targeted) monitoring. It is a subtype of competitive intelligence (CI), which is data and info ...
and speed up product development.
Lenovo reported a year-on-year increase of about 951% in tablet sales in India for the first quarter of 2014. Canalys, a market research firm, said Lenovo took market share away from Apple and Samsung in the country.
Africa
Lenovo first started doing business in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
, establishing a sales office, and then expanded to East African markets such as Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda. West Africa followed when Lenovo set-up a Nigerian legal office and then expanded to Ghana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana.
According to Lenovo's general manager for Africa, Graham Braum, Lenovo's strategy is to put "great emphasis on products that sell well in Africa" and roll out "products alongside different African governments' rolling out of wireless technology". Products such as the Lenovo Yoga series are popular in Africa because of their long battery life, as many areas have unreliable electrical supply. Other popular products include the Lenovo netbooks, which were introduced in 2008.
Lenovo picked Nigeria in 2013 to release its smartphone because unlike South Africa and other African countries, there is no requirement to partner with a local telecom firm to sell its phones.
In the long term, according to Braum, "Lenovo in Africa will focus on continuing to consistently supply personal computer products and allow this market to grow, while moving into new territory such as mobile and enterprise."
Singapore
Lenovo has had a presence in Singapore as early as its foundation, and with a focus on the
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
region, it is the location of one of Lenovo's three head offices. Registered as Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., it is located at the New Tech Park in the Lorong Chuan district of the North-East Region of Singapore.
United States
In the United States, Lenovo began the "For Those Who Do" marketing campaign in 2010, created by the ad agency
Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi is a British multinational communications and advertising agency network with 114 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in 1970 and is currently headquartered in London. The parent company of the agency gr ...
. It was part of Lenovo's first-ever global branding campaign, beyond its domestic market in China. "For Those Who Do" was designed to appeal to young consumers in the 18- to 25-year-old demographic by stressing its utility to creative individuals that Lenovo's advertising refers to as "doers". One of Lenovo's operational centers is located in North Carolina, United States. Lenovo also started manufacturing products in the United States in 2012.
Goodweird
Lenovo launched a multi-year advertising campaign called "Goodweird" in the last half of 2015. Goodweird is designed to convey the idea that designs that seem strange initially often become familiar and widely accepted. The Goodweird campaign includes a video with famous images of early attempts to fly with the aid of homemade wings and a bicycle that transitions to a modern-day shot of a man soaring across mountains in a wingsuit before transitioning again to a shot of the
Stealth Bomber
Stealth aircraft are designed to avoid detection using a variety of technologies that reduce reflection/emission of radar, infrared, visible light, radio frequency (RF) spectrum, and audio, collectively known as stealth technology. The F-117 Nig ...
. Lenovo worked with three agencies on Goodweird: London-based DLKW Low, We Are Social, and Blast Radius. Goodweird is part of Lenovo's wider strategy to appeal to millennials with an emphasis on design trendsetters. A portion of the funding for Goodweird is being directed to prominent
YouTubers
YouTubers are people mostly known for their work on the video sharing platform YouTube. The following is a list of YouTubers for whom Wikipedia has articles either under their own name or their YouTube channel name. This list excludes people wh ...
and Viners. BuzzFeed has been engaged to create relevant content.
Security and privacy incidents
Superfish
In February 2015, Lenovo became the subject of controversy for having bundled software identified as malware on some of its laptops. The software,
Superfish
Superfish was an advertising company that developed various advertising-supported software products based on a visual search engine. The company was based in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in Israel in 2006 and has been regarded as part ...
Visual Discovery, is a web browser add-on that injects
price comparison
Pricing is the process whereby a business sets the price at which it will sell its products and services, and may be part of the business's marketing plan. In setting prices, the business will take into account the price at which it could acqu ...
advertising into search engine results pages. To intercept
HTTPS
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...
-encrypted communications, the software also installed a self-signed
digital certificate
In cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key. The certificate includes information about the key, information about the ...
. When the Superfish
private key
Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic alg ...
was compromised, it was also discovered that the same private key was used across all installations of the software, leaving users vulnerable to security exploits utilizing the key. Lenovo made between on its deal with Superfish. In 2017 Lenovo agreed to pay as part of a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission. and announced an apology to its customers and stock holders.
The head of Superfish responded to security concerns by saying the vulnerability was "inadvertently" introduced by Komodia, which built the application. In response to the criticism, Lenovo detailed that it would cease further distribution and use of the Superfish software, and offered affected customers free six-month subscriptions to the
McAfee
McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company head ...
LiveSafe software. Lenovo issued a promise to reduce the amount of "
bloatware
Software bloat is a process whereby successive versions of a computer program become perceptibly slower, use more memory, disk space or processing power, or have higher hardware requirements than the previous version, while making only dubious us ...
" it bundles with its
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
devices, promising to only include Lenovo software, security software, drivers, and "certain applications customarily expected by users". '' Salon'' tech writer David Auerbach compared the Superfish incident to the Sony DRM rootkit scandal, and argued that "installing Superfish is one of the most irresponsible mistakes an established tech company has ever made."
Lenovo Service Engine
From October 2014 through June 2015, the
UEFI
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a set of specifications written by the UEFI Forum. They define the architecture of the platform firmware used for booting and its interface for interaction with the operating system. Examples of ...
firmware on certain Lenovo models had contained software known as "Lenovo Service Engine", which Lenovo says automatically sent non-identifiable system information to Lenovo the first time Windows is connected to the internet, and on laptops, automatically installs the Lenovo OneKey Optimizer program (software considered to be
bloatware
Software bloat is a process whereby successive versions of a computer program become perceptibly slower, use more memory, disk space or processing power, or have higher hardware requirements than the previous version, while making only dubious us ...
) as well. This process occurs even on clean installations of Windows. It was found that this program had been automatically installed using a new feature in
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
, Windows Platform Binary Table, which allows executable files to be stored within UEFI firmware for execution on startup, and is meant to "allow critical software to persist even when the operating system has changed or been reinstalled in a "clean" configuration"; specifically, anti-theft security software. The software was discontinued after it was found that aspects of the software had security vulnerabilities, and did not comply with revised guidelines for appropriate usage of WPBT. On 31 July 2015, Lenovo released instructions and UEFI firmware updates meant to remove Lenovo Service Engine.
Lenovo Customer Feedback program
At a third time in 2015, criticism arose that Lenovo might have installed software that looked suspicious on their commercial Think-PC lines. This was discovered by Computerworld writer Michael Horowitz, who had purchased several Think systems with the Customer Feedback program installed, which seemed to log usage data and metrics. Further analysis by Horowitz revealed however that this was mostly harmless, as it was only logging the usage of some pre-installed Lenovo programs, and not the usage in general, and only if the user allowed the data to be collected. Horowitz also criticized other media for quoting his original article and saying that Lenovo preinstalled spyware, as he himself never used that term in this case and he also said that he does not consider the software he found to be spyware.
Lenovo Accelerator
As of June 2016, a Duo Labs report stated that Lenovo was still installing bloatware, some of which leads to security vulnerabilities as soon as the user turns on their new PC. Lenovo advised users to remove the offending app, "Lenovo Accelerator". According to Lenovo, the app, designed to "speed up the loading" of Lenovo applications, created a
man-in-the-middle
In cryptography and computer security, a man-in-the-middle, monster-in-the-middle, machine-in-the-middle, monkey-in-the-middle, meddler-in-the-middle, manipulator-in-the-middle (MITM), person-in-the-middle (PITM) or adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) ...
security vulnerability.
U.S. Marine network security breach
In February 2021, ''
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
Business'' reported that U.S. investigators found in 2008 that military units in Iraq were using Lenovo laptops in which the hardware had been altered. According to a testimony from the case in 2010, "A large amount of Lenovo laptops were sold to the U.S. military that had a chip encrypted on the motherboard that would record all the data that was being inputted into that laptop and send it back to China".UNITED STATES OF AMERICA VERSUS EHAB ASHOOR (2010) p.71
See also
*
List of computer system manufacturers
A computer system is a nominally complete computer that includes the hardware, operating system (main software), and the means to use peripheral equipment needed and used for full or mostly full operation. Such systems may constitute personal com ...