Lenovo Says Apple Can't Dominate Tablet Market Forever
Like IBM in the PC sector, Apple won't always rule the Land of the Tablets.
For the first time in over a decade, Apple sales surpassed Lenovo in revenue within greater China. Lenovo's China sales – which doesn't include Hong Kong and Taiwan – rose 23.4-percent from a year ago to $2.8 billion whereas Apple's same quarter – which does include Hong Long and Taiwan – jumped sixfold compared to this time last year, ending at $3.8 billion. Analysts suggest that Lenovo needs to beef up sales in Hong Kong and Taiwan in order to catch up with Apple.
But Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanquing dismissed the fruity "achievement" by saying that the two revenues can't be compared, that it's not apples to apples because the Cupertino, CA-based company's numbers also include iPhone sales – Lenovo's phone business isn't all that great even in China, as its primary focus is on the PC sector.
"If you compare the PC business we still have a lead far ahead of any of our competitors,” Yang told Financial Times.
But seemingly like all other tablet makers, Lenovo plans to tip the scales against Apple by launching its own line of Android and Windows-based tablets that will hopefully put an end to Apple's domination of the tablet sector.
"We will be one of the strongest of the players in this area," he said. "Apple only covers the top tier. With a $500 price you cannot go to the small cities, townships, low salary class, low income class. I don’t want to say we want to significantly lower the price, rather our strategy is to provide more categories, to cover different market segments."
If anything, HP proved the need for addressing the low-income market when it hacked the price of its TouchPad down to $99.99 and $149.99 over the weekend. As the quick sell-out revealed, everyone can't afford to shell out $500 for a new tablet, and even if they do have the resources, they just may not be willing to part with that kind of money given the current state of the economy.
Nevertheless, while acknowledging Apple's 70-percent claim of the tablet sector, Yang also pointed to the PC sector, how it began with a market controlled by IBM to a market that's very diversified. This is also expected of the tablet sector – that Apple won't always serve as the supreme ruler.
In addition to the tablet sector, Lenovo is going after Apple on the smartphone front with Android-based devices. "We have a smartphone in the same price band as the Apple (iPhone) but we also just released a $150 Android-based handset aimed at those with lower incomes," he said. "We think we can achieve more volume with that product."
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No but they will sue anyone who comes close to their over priced I crap pad!!!
apple will always be apple, and this hurts them more than any other company in existence, though it hasn't shown that on the ipod,phone,pad side... for some unknown reason.
ipod is a pain in the (do not want sanction again) to manage, and i cant for the life of me figure out how to actually make a backup of it without hacking it, let me drag and drop off not this apple sync thing. when my moms ipod touch got an os upgrade, se lost all her contact info along with songs because the thing wouldn't back up and restore properly. anything else i would have been able to drag and drop and restore manualy but not an apple product.
the iphone had horrible design choices (you aren't holding it right) and they look down on you, patronizing you, instead of out and out admitting it.
and the ipad is the worst of them all, tied to an os that isn't a real os.
all its going to take is for either windows or android to make an os that is compatible with windows, where apps can be use on computer, files are easy to transfer, and real programs, not mobile counter parts, are used, and ios will slowly fade away. because honestly... apple cant evolve without being dragged kicking and screaming - see apple and games for the most recent example. and done bring up iphone or ipad, the market was always there for those, but never correctly exploited till apple as they brought a "cool" factor, instead of geek label that was on such devices before.
Being a Chinese company I think they know their demographics the best. When I visited Beijing this summer I was struck by just how unreachable Apple products are to the general public.
@ Alidan
Well Said
Can't wait to see how Windows 8 will perform when a true full OS is implemented into a sleek tablet. Apple will literally need to move OS X to their iPad once that happens.
Clueless comments so far. iPad and iPhone are already running OS X, what you see is the iOS on top. Windows 8 will likely be the same recycled POS that Windows
Ahem, since when did Apple dominate in anything apart from shoving their heads up their asses?
You assume people want tablets to be pcs. All the pc Windows fan boys are decreeing that the pc is not even midlife yet not end of life and I agree.
Do I want a wicked pc to browse a bit on and play awesome games on and do work with photoshop? You bet I do. And I do. Could I use a touch screen to play actual games with? No, could I use a touch screen for photoshop (let alone a 10.1" monitor)? Hell no.
Could I use my pc lie on the couch or in bed and quickly check emails, browse the net or read a book? nope. Could I take it ouch casually to my parents and show them vacation photos? nah. Could I do all this with a laptop? absolutely, but it is much bulkier and no way near as intuitive. Put a real OS on my ipad and it becomes a lame duck pc with a crappy operating system bogged down by my specs and a touch interface. It will never allow me to play proper games without a keyboard and mouse and will not ever be suitable for my design work and the battery life will be crap.
What I want is a fully featured PC for my serious computing and a light/fun/efficient tablet for casual browsing, checking home emails and looking up imdb when I'm watching a movie on the couch and can't remember what I've seen that actress in before. Put a full operating system on my tablet and you defeat the point. Put a tablet os on my PC and I'll throw it away!
I might sound like a nut but I like a simplified "not real os" on my tablet. And I believe a few people think like me. And man I was gutted missing out on one of those HP touchpads. Wouldn't have to steal my wifes ipad all the time If I had one.
@ AlidanWell SaidCan't wait to see how Windows 8 will perform when a true full OS is implemented into a sleek tablet. Apple will literally need to move OS X to their iPad once that happens.
i honestly doubt that windows 8 will be the os, it will most likely be a service pack update that gets the tablet to work right, because i can see a ton of bugs they wont catch in a testing phase, but will when it the public gets it.
but here is the thing, it may be to windows advantage to come out with a broken os that works out of the gate. if it does things that ipad cant but is meh, apple wont see a need for osx in tablet, and while the 8 is out and getting the test feed back, they can make it magnitudes better, and launch the update, and at that point, apple wouldn't be able to respond fast enough, giving windows a longer chance to dominate.
but in honesty, apple may not even get the hint until its to late. they have a bad habit of sticking to something thats failing and blaming it on people, instead of actually fixing the problem, see the most recent example of the antenna, and an older one of them sticking to a processor that forced people to code a version specifically for them, more so than now. and another when they had to be bailed out.
there is a good chance that they would stick to a separated app and os environment, even if windows starts to over take them because of an integrated environment.
Well they're still dominating the portable music player market with iPod even after 10 years so... I don't see why they can't dominate with the iPad.
for the People here saying Apple is crap, i dont think there is ANY chance that i would employ you to run my company ( if i had one)
because with you, it would end up like HP.......
Apple must be doing some right? show me where they are going wrong and i show you a idiot
and i am a MS fanboy
I for once agree with you aladin. Though not on the windows 8 thing. It looks like they are really trying hard to make a modular OS that can be used on everything from phone pc tablet and xbox. so they can make thier unification theory work correctly. Im pretty sure windows 8 is if not the OS the major step in that direction.
I personally believe Apple has planted a good solid product in the Tablet market and is already developing version 3. So at this point I think Apple has locked up any potential tablet buyers. I don't think we are talking about a Tablet in every household like a PC. So where Lenovo thinks more buyers will come from is beyond me. I don't see many who bought the first iPad who may be in the market for a replacement choosing anything but a iPad.
Good to see that at least some company (other than MS) has the balls to declare war on apple like this.
Lenovo: May the force be with you!
No but they will sue anyone who comes close to their over priced I crap pad!!!
if you compared crap with crap you will see that apple's crap is a better crap
I for once agree with you aladin. Though not on the windows 8 thing. It looks like they are really trying hard to make a modular OS that can be used on everything from phone pc tablet and xbox. so they can make thier unification theory work correctly. Im pretty sure windows 8 is if not the OS the major step in that direction.
the more i think about it in that contest the less the idea annoys me.
people will buy an xbox for gameing
people will get a smart phone for... cant understand this logic
and people will get a pc for... well... everything.
if you can get a game on the xbox, than when you get a good computer, move it over to windows, and when cellphones get powerful enough, and they will, in years, move it over to that... the future looks relitivly bright.
the key here is if they don't screw you by making you pay for it more than once.
I personally believe Apple has planted a good solid product in the Tablet market and is already developing version 3. So at this point I think Apple has locked up any potential tablet buyers. I don't think we are talking about a Tablet in every household like a PC. So where Lenovo thinks more buyers will come from is beyond me. I don't see many who bought the first iPad who may be in the market for a replacement choosing anything but a iPad.
well, my mom specifically... she despises the fact it doesn't run flash. she wants to do EVERYTHING off the ipad she can do on the laptop, because she hates computers, but she cant give the laptop up because of flash, and how she cant view some things on the ipad, its really the only reason she still uses the laptop.
most of what she does on the ipad will be ported in some way to the windows equivalent, so when that day comes, she has no reason to stick to apple.
for the People here saying Apple is crap, i dont think there is ANY chance that i would employ you to run my company ( if i had one)because with you, it would end up like HP.......Apple must be doing some right? show me where they are going wrong and i show you a idiotand i am a MS fanboy
Their products are decent, the company's policies, tactics, style, CEO and fanbois are crap.
We need a tablet with a high degree of connectivity.
With user exchangeable batteries.
With a competitive price.
Ignorant dumb people will, especially if they are existentially challenged and want to make believe they are cool.
No, a tablet is not a laptop. Dont even dream of doing everything you can do in a laptop or netbook in a device like an iPad. For one, it is extremely difficult to type in such a device. A tablet is suited for reading and surfing the web. Not for much more.
... then kal-el came and all was good in the tablet universe...
can't wait for the asus tf2...
Stand still doing the same and "suddenly" you become the dinosaur. Extinct!
It is not Apple who needs to fail at certain point in the future for other companies to be in a better dominant position, so I disagree with Lenovo on their "wait and see" argument. Apple wasn't on top of anything 5-6 years ago but at certain point they started working on their own products more than complaining to other companies. Today however it is also about lawyers and court.
Apple is not standing still and could be working on yet another product for desktops. Maybe a stronger version of the A(x) chips for a headless desktop device. iOS is after all a simplified OSX so in a few years Apple devices could be running one integrated OS. And I mean a massive product for consumers and not for hardcore users.
Lenovo and other companies need to create, redefine, invent products that will translate in a better experience for the end consumer user. The products will never be perfect, but is this better job inside a specific company what will make their products and companies relevant in time.
It would also help if you compared the same markets. One company including Hong Kong and Taiwan, the other not, well mess the numbers up a lot. Both of those are very big markets, which spend a lot of money on anything which has anything to do with computers.
Their products are decent, the company's policies, tactics, style, CEO and fanbois are crap.
i sort of agree with you, but, would you do any different?
would you change tactics that could harm the company? lose £££ or jobs? in a recession?
sometimes things work out the way they do , because there is no other way ( check out HP)
The previous commenters make me laugh.
It all boils down to whining about:
• "Apple makes overpriced crap" (Then why can't anybody else make it cheaper?*)
• "I can't figure out how/why people are stupid enough to be buying this stuff?" (Well aren't you smart then? Lonely, but smart.)
• "Wait 'till Windows x.y comes!" (Like Windows is going to come up with something that their ENTERPRISE customer base hasn't asked for.)
You guys don't seem to realize that Apple is playing in an entirely different arena, with an entirely different customer base.
Apple is a CONSUMER company not an ENTERPRISE company.
They don't give a fig about you, your opinions or your bitch-fest commentaries, just about what they can sell over the web and through their retail stores to your spouses, your kids and maybe even to you...
*) The answer to that question is that Apple isn't trying to use commodity hardware and off the shelf components packaged in standard equipment racks. The A4 and A5 chip sets are Apple's competitive advantage and they are quantitively different from x86 chip sets. They are also not available to anyone else that Apple.
yea apple fanboys won't live forever no matter how much soy milk and greens they consume
That much is very true. When Tablets of quality materials are able to be sold for $150~250 regularly, then it'll really be a mainstream product. Only the bottom end junk sells for that price range, which usually feels like crap, horrible low-res screen, bad touch sensor, short life span, small storage (4~8GB), short battery life.
Of course the 7" Color Nook comes in at $250, is a a quality product and is functional out of the box. But can be rooted to run full Android. But it doesn't have the feature set of normal modern tablets (2 cams, memory, bigger screen, higher performance CPU and memory). So we may get their in another 2 years.
Apple's iPad is not high priced... if that was true, Samsung, HP, Xoom and others would be selling their 16GB models for $300~350 as a regular price. Yet, even at Apple's $500 price - none of them are making the profit or sales of Apple.
if you compared crap with crap you will see that apple's crap is a better crap
and its better how? is it because they got the sheep to keep buying there products no matter how small the improvements are over the previous one? or people who don't think twice before infecting there computers by installing itunes on it to use there products correctly?
also i will open this question out to the public:
would you get an iphone 4, a phone that is over a year old, for $150.00 or would you get an android phone like the nexus S that has been out for only 6 months for 50 bucks. if you choose th iphone at a price like that for how old it is then at this point you are are part of apples flock of sheep
"No, a tablet is not a laptop. Dont even dream of doing everything you can do in a laptop or netbook in a device like an iPad. For one, it is extremely difficult to type in such a device. A tablet is suited for reading and surfing the web. Not for much more."
I've had an iPad for about a year and I'm typing on it much better now than I did a year ago. Not too different from how my texting skills have improved over the years. Not too different from getting accustomed to a touchpad after using a mouse for over a decade.
With use, you'll get better and better at typing on the virtual keyboards. I look at it where the relative near future would be decent and always improving typing on a tab device, plus a lightweight keyboard dock liek the Transformer, plus a wireless 'dock' connection to a kb/m + [multi]monitor setup, but where the tablet is the computer portion of all three.
Of course, the ~5% of people who need the extra horsepower for gaming and HD video editing and the like will always be looking at the current formats, since they will almost always need more power for those particular tasks than a tablet can provide.
I guest MS fanboys will live forever.
They will until companies like Lenovo don't make their products cheaper or totally different from the iPad in terms of usefulness. Right now a tablet is still a tablet. At least Asus is trying to do something with the keyboard.