“The first calendar quarter came with a 15% increase year-on-year, after which the market slowly went down and if we do the math, sales are equal to those last year,” Aurel Netin, country manager Lenovo Romania, Bulgaria and Republic of Moldova, told ZF.
“The decline stood at 4% to 5% year-on-year in the second and third quarter. Whereas initial expectations pointed to 7% to 8% growth of the PC market, what we are seeing now is stagnation.”
PC sales stood at about 207,000 units in the third quarter compared with 182,000 units the first and 150,000 in the second.
The Chinese-held company reached its highest market share since arrival in Romania in the third quarter, Netin added.
“We ended the third quarter with a 29.2% market share, according to IDC data, the highest ever in Romania. We were very strong on the consumer segment, where we are number one and did well on the commercial segment, where are on the second place.”
Lenovo also operates on the PC tablet market, which Aurel Netin says, is in decline.
“There is clearly a decline on the tablet market, a very interesting decline because IDC data show the market is flat, at 1 to 1.1 million units, while GfK data say there is decline. Let’s see the next wave of data. There is a gap between imports and sales at the moment, it may be the inventories.”
Lenovo is the third leading overall tablet vendor and leading tablet vendor on the segment of the 8” and 10” devices in Romania. Fierce competition on this market is starting to take its toll among local competitors so some of them may give up and focus on something more profitable instead, Netin says.
The company expects to reach its target for the fiscal year ending in March 2016 on the smartphone segment, which is to sell 250,000 phones.
“We expect 80,000 smartphone sales this quarter, which means 150,000 this year. We need to sell 100,000 more in the first quarter of next year to reach our fiscal year target.”
Aurel Netin thinks it is doable because the company will have a single product line, which will integrate the Motorola products. Next quarter Lenovo should also add a smartwatch, so he believes it stands chances of partnerships with major telecom companies.
“We’ve been in talks for two years, we are close to finishing them. The smartphone market is growing, it is theoretically a market that will ensure double-digit growth for at least one or two years, it is a market we need to focus on.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)