Lenovo is going through a difficult time, as a large group of brick-and-mortar retailers in India have refused to sell Lenovo smartphones. They have gone against the discounts and better models which the country’s third-largest smartphone is selling online. As per the industry experts, mobile phone stores and electronics chains Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar have joined the outcry. They have decided not to sell Lenovo models until the brand comes up on equal trade terms.
Lenovo, however has refused to give any comments on this matter, they are all set to build up the brick and morter business for their smartphones. As revealed by their experts, e-commerce has contributed around 75 per cent on their sale of smartphone and has a share of offline trade going up to 40 per cent. On part of the retailers, they want to cut down on the rates of expensive spare parts and also want an improved after-sales service.
Brand executives reveal this there is a tussle going on between offline and online retailers in this country. This disturbance has coerced the brands to come up with uniform pricing for all the channels. Some time back, Lenovo had showed an opposition to online discounting in India and demanded a special strategy. It though has recently come up with a handset with various names and rates for the online and offline channels, where the online model with be atleast Rs 2,000 cheaper .
As per the market researchers, Lenovo has realised that in order to gain shares, they should focus on the Rs 15,000-plus segment, which can be achieved through offline trade. So it is expected that the company soon emerge with a strategy for offline trade along with the online. The Lenovo-Motorola combination had earned a share upto 11.4 per cent in the country’s smartphone market. Samsung Electronics and Micromax Informatics, though had come up as the second-largest 4G smartphone branding in October-December.
