In an effort to become a house hold name Lenovo has gotten involved in sponsoring the winter Olympics in 2006 and the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008. This involves a huge commitment for Lenovo that will supply about 5,000 desktops, 600 notebooks and 350 servers for four main application areas in addition to seven internet lounges and a technology showcase for key customers. The figures for Beijing are likely to be about four times greater.
Lenovo is new in Europe but comes from a long established company in China and is now the third biggest global PC player having acquired IBM’s Personal Sales division last May. Lenovo is the third largest manufacturer of PCs in the world with a turnover of approximately thirteen million dollars producing roughly twelve million units commanding about eight per cent market share. The company has about 19,000 employees in the PC division and has offices in 166 countries.
The budgeted cost of the Winter Olympics is over € 1.2 billion, of which technologies account for 23 per cent. The Winter Olympics will be held next February in Turin or Torino as the Italians would rather have it called. The games are expected to have a television audience of over three billion people, 1.5 million spectators, 2,500 competitors and 10,000 journalists making for a unique branding opportunity according to Milko van Duiji, Lenovo’s EMEA general manager.
Lenovo’s main trust outside China is still business-to-business. In China the situation is very different. The company runs over 6,000 retail outlets and enjoys a market share in excess of a third with a big concentration in the SME and home market segments. The company also has extensive interests in other areas such as mobile phones that are likely to be launched in Europe early next year.
On a worldwide basis Lenovo operates with 35,000 business partners and is intent on having its PC products remain an integral part of the total solutions that its business partners offer their customers. The company’s programme strategy remains unaltered but over time it expects to incorporate and accelerate new programmes based on demand from its business partners. Loosely translated this means very little change although van Duiji did indicate that there would be more market segments and the possibility of selling through large retrial outlets. He expects Lenovo to be a more agile and innovative company that will supply cutting edge technology.
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