In China's Smartphone Market, Lenovo Gets Busy

The Forbidden City. Mao’s Tomb. A Lenovo store? If Arthur Wei has his way, the Chinese electronics company will soon add its own must-see destination to central Beijing. Wei is the chief marketing officer for Lenovo in China, and his job is to persuade local consumers looking for smartphones to forget about the iPhone. Following Apple’s lead, Lenovo next month will open a flagship store: 7,500 square feet over two floors celebrating all things Lenovo, especially its new line of smartphones and other mobile gadgets. The goal, Wei says, is less about selling products and more about boosting awareness that the company now has “some cool stuff.”

Lenovo is the world’s biggest PC vendor, thanks largely to its dominant position in China, but it’s struggled to get local consumers to buy its phones. Two years ago, when millions of Chinese were embracing the iPhone, Lenovo was still pushing basic handsets. With most of its research and development focused on older-generation phones, the company had just one smartphone—the awkwardly named LePhone. “We were in a very difficult time,” recalls Senior Vice President Liu Jun, who took over as head of the mobile division in 2011. “It was really hard for us to compete head to head against Apple.”