In China, it is better known as the world’s new No. 1 PC maker, a force to be reckoned with in smartphones and a bellwether for the nation’s economic and technological might.
The laptop maker is already the second-largest smartphone brand in China, after Samsung Electronics. Lenovo, which has never had modest plans, wants to build on that success and begin pushing into the United States and other wealthy markets in 2014.
“I’ll be very clear: Our aspiration is someday to be No. 1 in the mobile space,” said J. D. Howard, a Lenovo vice president who is in charge of developing the company’s smartphone business outside China. “I know it sounds crazy, but even five years ago, if I had said we’d be No. 1 in PCs, people would have said we were crazy.”
The company must balance — some would say blend — American and Chinese cultures. It has dual headquarters, in Beijing and Morrisville, N.C. Eighteen nationalities are represented among the top 100 managers. While it has had success worldwide in PCs and with its new smartphones in China, its good fortune in developed markets, dominated by entrenched Apple and Samsung, is anything but assured.
