Lenovo to manufacture up to 1 mn smartphone units per month in India in 2019

PC and mobile maker Lenovo plans to ramp up its smartphone production capacity up to 1 million units per month in 2019, a top official of the company said 16 October.“We make mobile phones in India at our partners' factory. At present we have a production capacity of 100,000 per month which we plan to increase in the range of 500,000 to 1 million units per month by the end of 2019,” Lenovo Group vice president Edward Chang told PTI.The capacity expansion does not include volume of Motorola phones — a brand which is owned by Lenovo.[caption id="attachment_4330125" align="alignnone" width="1280"]

Lenovo logo. Reuters.[/caption]The company has entered into an exclusive partnership with e-commerce platform Flipkart to sell its phone in India.The company launched three smartphones in sub-Rs 10,000 price segment, Lenovo K9 for Rs 8,999 and two models of Lenovo A5 for 5,999 and Rs 6,999 at an event on 16 October.“We have partnered exclusively with Flipkart because the share of online and offline market will be equal in India by 2020. This means it is 60-70 million units business opportunity every year,” Chang said.Lenovo with its another brand Motorola was once among the top three smartphone sellers in India. Its share, however, slipped to 6 percent in the last quarter of 2017 from 9 percent in the first quarter of 2017.Chang said that the company now wants to focus on brand experience rather than market share.“We are now looking to move towards Smart Internet-of-things. Lenovo will combine PC portfolio with smartphone and some wearable for smart IoT. In the first quarter of 2019 we will bring our flagship phone in India. We are in discussion with Flipkart to customise it for Indian market,” he said.