Lenovo effect on Samsung earnings

Lenovo has implemented an aggressive strategy to
replace Samsung Electronics 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 . However,
its attempt was reportedly blocked by the Government
of Canada , 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 officially announced that
Lenovo became the hardware partner of Windows
Phone platform at the Mobile World Congress 2014.
In March 2014, a super affordable smartphone, Lenovo
Golden Warrior S8 (Lenovo S898t+) was introduced in
China. It costs only RMB$788 with a 5.3-inch HD
screen, an octa-core processor from MediaTek , 1GB of
RAM, 8GB of storage and 13-megapixels rear-facing
camera.