Lenovo plans to revitalize its handset efforts, setting its sights on China’s rapidly-growing smartphone market for initial growth.
The company, which reacquired handset division Lenovo Mobile last November, believes the business can account for up to one-fifth of revenue within five years.
At the launch of its new Lephone handset yesterday, Lenovo said it would concentrate its handset marketing efforts on China at first, then broaden the scope to include emerging markets, and then developed markets, WSJ.comsaid.
The company will develop phones for both the enterprise and consumer markets, using all three 3G standards operating in China – W-CDMA, cdma2000 and TD-SCDMA.
Lenovo's first offering under the new strategy - the Lephone smartphone - runs on OPhone, a version of Google's Android OS customized by China Mobile.
The touchscreen handset is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, ships with a snap-on keyboard, and supports 3G, Wi-Fi and A-GPS.
This particular model has been made specifically for the Chinese market, and there are no plans for an international launch.
Lenovo sold Lenovo Mobile in 2008 for $100 million, but bought it back for twice the price in November last year.