Lenovo shuffles exec ranks to create smart devices company
By April 1 next year, Lenovo has said that it will have everything in place for its new, as yet unnamed, business intended to focus on smart devices in the Chinese market.
The company will be headed up by Chen Xudong, who is currently in the role of Lenovo president of China and Asia-Pacific — emerging markets (East Asia, Hong Kong, ASEAN, and India), with Liu Jun and George He as co-chairmen.
Liu Jun is currently the executive vice president and head of Lenovo's mobile business group, while George He is senior vice president and head of the ecosystem and cloud services group.
"The objective of this move is to help Lenovo attack the fast-growing consumer mobile device market in China, with a focus not only on devices, but also on software and application development and close customer engagement," Lenovo said in its announcement.
"While Lenovo has and continues to strengthen its own company-branded online channels as part of its go-to-market strategy, the new company will exclusively focus on direct-to-consumer sales, marketing, and product development using an internet-based business model."
Lenovo was scant on further details, saying only that Chen Xudong would continue in his present role, and that other information would be released over the next few months.
The Chinese computing giant presently sits atop the worldwide PC shipment rankings, making up 20 percent of global PCs last quarter.
Last month, Lenovo completed the $2.3 billion purchase of IBM's x86 server business. Matt Codrington, Lenovo Australia and New Zealand managing director, told ZDNet that the acquisition will make the company the third-largest player in the $42.1 billion global x86 server market, and the third-largest player in the Australia and New Zealand market.
"We'll be taking an already formidable business to the next level. Our global plan is to achieve AU$5 billion in revenue for this division, and higher profitability than our PC business within the first year," he said.
"They're aspirational targets, but achievable. All of this plays into our PC strategy, which is really delivering an end-to-end solution from the smartphone all the way to the datacentre, and everything in between. To ensure we make the most of this acquisition locally, we've committed AU$5 million to fuel the growth within the business."