Lenovo aims to take down Apple as tablet market leader
Since the iPad first debuted in early 2010, not a single manufacturer has been able to present a solid challenge to Apple's dominance in this market.
Lenovo is certainly not alone when it comes to developers who are likely tired of this fact, but Chinese PC maker is stepping up to the plate...or at least the microphone.
Yang Yuanquing, Lenovo's CEO, proclaimed to The Financial Times that his company will "will be one of the strongest of the players in this area," adding that Lenovo will be focusing on offering tablets in every price range, including lower-end models, so that everyone has a chance at a tablet:
"Apple only covers the top tier," he says. "With a $500 price you cannot go to the small cities, townships, low salary class, low income class. I don’t want to say we want to significantly lower the price, rather our strategy is to provide more categories, to cover different market segments."
When announcing fiscal first quarter earnings last week, Lenovo reaffirmed its plans for a consumer-meets-enterprise ThinkPad tablet in the United States as well as an initiative to own 20 percent of the tablet market in China.
Nevertheless, while it's possible that Lenovo could present a challenge to Apple (after all, anything is really possible), these comments already hard to take seriously. No one has been able to release a product that has even come close to the iPad in sales, reviews or even looks as an iSuppli study argued that tablet competitors haven't been able to produce a design that has been more well received that the one of the iPad.
Yet, the door is still open. Not only are Yang's comments about the $500 cost pretty accurate -- especially for anything that isn't an iPad as seen by the HP TouchPad's rapid price tag tumble -- but also a DigiTimes report earlier this month posited that non-Apple tablets are expected to surge in 2012 by 134 percent. This will likely be more due to the rise of Android (especially now with Motorola in tow) more than anything based on Windows.
[via Gizmodo]
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