Lenovo announced that they plan to manufacture wearables in India to get a better grip at the market in the country. As a growing wearable market, it would benefit Lenovo to take this step. Manufacturing in the country of sale would lead to highly quality products priced at a reasonable rate.
Currently, all the wearables that Lenovo offers in the Indian market are imported from China. Sebastian Peng, Head of Accessories at Lenovo thinks that the wearable market is to grow at least but 30-40% and the company would rather not miss such an opportunity to pitch their products. Lenovo’s share in the Indian wearable market is about 7%, which the company expects to grow by 3 folds once the manufacturing is shifted to the Indian shore.
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The Chinese brand is also in talks with Indian companies to better facilitate the shift of manufacturing base. Lenovo holds a partnership with online retailer Flipkart to sell their wearables in the Indian market, and they plan to expand it to other online retailers like Amazon. Lenovo wouldn’t be the first one to embrace the “Make in India” initiative. Xiaomi has already started doing it and it has resulted in quality products for a lesser price than it’s competitors. Lenovo’s smartphones never really took off in the Indian market. Even the Zuk Z2 Plus, which is a very capable phone offered at a great price, couldn’t Garner the deserved attention. This probably was a result of the tough competition that they faced by brands like Xiaomi and Samsung which offer smartphones in all the price segments in the Indian market.
Lenovo will have to compete with the likes of Apple, Xiaomi and Fitbit if they wish to survive in the Indian wearable market.