China's Lenovo has made a considerable splash over Samsung, knocking it out of the world's top position in budget smartphones, i.e. mobile phones costing less than US$100. This was announced by the market analysis company Strategy Analytics, evaluating the sales data for the first half of 2014.
The match between the two multinationals was played first of all in China: it is the population of the Celestial Empire, in fact, which, by virtue of its demographic weight, has the right to move the needle of the balance in favor of one or of the other of the two contenders. In the first months of 2014, sales of Samsung smartphones in China were decidedly sluggish, while Lenovo managed brilliantly.
Unlike other companies in the sector such as Apple, which specializes in high or medium-high category smartphones, Samsung has built its fortune in the field of telephony by offering a very varied range of products suitable for all budgets: from little price to the premium ones. Precisely in the field of cheap smartphones, Samsung had exercised, before overtaking Lenovo, an almost unchallenged domain.
Lenovo, on the other hand, had made no secret of a desire to expand in the smartphone sector, an interest that had culminated in the acquisition of Motorola in January this year. The Korean giant is now in the position of having to review and update its production and commercial strategies if it wants to keep pace with the unbridled advance of its Chinese competitor.
