Lenovo Invests $800 Million To Catch Up To Mobile Device Cutting Edge
Lenovo is spending the better part of a billion dollars (even more impressive in local currency: five billion yuan) to improve its chances in the mobile products game. Thousands of new employees will populate a new production facility in Wuhan and produce smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices–for both its native Chinese market and overseas. The new factory will open in October 2013, and Lenovo estimates total revenues from this facility alone will reach 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) by 2014 and reach 50 billion yuan in ten years. Lenovo (the “Apple of China“) recently revealed its first Intel-powered smartphone, and is best known for producing solid, if very tradtional laptops based on the boxy ThinkPad design for enterprise customers, which it purchased from IBM. The investment is yet another sign that the future market for laptops is dim.