Telecom Lead Asia: Sony Ericsson and LG veteran Sudhin Mathur has joined Lenovo India as smartphone business head.
Lenovo’s main aim is set to increase focus on smartphone business. Phone business is becoming a life line for Lenovo because its PC business is facing challenges due to shift to tablets and high end phones.
In a 25 March 2012 note, IDC said that Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE as well as Coolpad and Lenovo, have made significant strides to capture new users with their respective Android smartphones in the first quarter of 2013.
In the worldwide smartphone market, vendors shipped 216.2 million units in Q1 2013, which marked the first time more than half (51.6 percent) the total phone shipments in a quarter were smartphones. The market grew 41.6 percent compared to the 152.7 million units shipped in Q1 2012, but 5.1 percent lower than the 227.8 million units shipped in Q4 2012.
For Lenovo, Indian smartphone market – dominated by Samsung – offers tough challenges. One Lenovo is a new entrant to the smartphone arena. Second, Lenovo is yet to become aggressive comparing with Samsung, Nokia, Apple, Sony, BlackBerry, etc.
As director – Smartphones at Lenovo India, Sudhin will be responsible for steering the company’s growth strategies for smartphones in India.
Besides Sony Ericsson, Sudhin also worked with LG Mobiles.
At Sony Ericsson (now Sony Mobile), Sudhin significantly contributed for setting up and launching the Sony Ericsson brand in India.
During his tenure at Sony Ericsson, the businesses grew consistently and the brand emerged as a leading player in the high end mobile devices and services space.
At LG Mobile India, as the business head, he spearheaded the company’s overall business operations for mobile phones in India.
One of the core strategies was to reposition the LG mobile brand image and establish it as a leading player in Smart Phone segment. He restructured the distribution by bringing in regional partners who provided flexibility and created value for retail partners.
