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EXCLUSIVE:Lenovo Moving Into Build Your Own PC & Home Warranty Visits

Lenovo is heading in a new direction with consumers able to build their own devices at a retail store, the Chinese PC Company who has had 40% growth in the last quarter is expanding both their consumer and B2B business around what is being described as “superior service”.

According to CEO Matt Coddrington the Australian operation is also launching a new ‘on site’ warranty with a Lenovo staff service team set to be available to visit homes and offices when a user of their products is having a problem.

He was not able to disclose the cost of the new service.

ChannelNews understands that Lenovo who has 4,000 Lenovo stores worldwide has also looked at opening their own stores in Australia, that are used overseas to drive sales to the Companies online site which already accounts for a major slice of the Companies local operation.

Matt Coddrington CEO Lenovo Australia.

According to Coddrington the new build your own PC service allows consumers to “build a gaming machine, work or home desktop PC” at a local retailer.

“Users will be able to pick a hard drive graphics card or 4K display screen” he said.

He said that the concept was working “extremly well” in Japan and that he sees no reason why it will not work in Australia.

Five years ago, Acer Australia who was building PC’s and offering on site warranty closed their operation down due to heavy losses.

 

One of the major problems was that consumers wanted their onsite service after 5.00pm, this became a major issue and was not “workable” according to Acer executives at the time.

Coddrington said that Lenovo global management could not believe how tough consumer conditions for PC sales were in Australia.

He said that conditions laid down by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission were “The toughest in the world”.

“There is nowhere anywhere in the world where they are as tough, and this is a good thing” said Coddrington.

During the past 6 months Lenovo has taken staff from both Acer and Dell due to “several Australian staff being promoted into global roles” said Coddrington. He also said that his enterprise business was growing due in part to Lenovo now being able to take on Dell with an Enterprise Services offering.

Among the staff to exit Lenovo Australia was former Marketing Director Nick Reynolds and Brendan Lau the head of B2b and consumer sales at Lenovo.

Reynolds is now head of digital web and social for Lenovo. Lau who is still working from Melbourne now has an Asia Pacific role as ‘General Manager’ Smart Devices.

Prior to Lau taking on his regional role a push was made by Lenovo online, global executives, for the Company to get out of consumer PC sales in Australia due to losses.

Local management rejected the concept.

According to Coddrington the local consumer business is growing and that a combination of online and retail sales is the way to go in Australia. He said, “Overseas management are allowed to have their opinions and they did in the case of our local retail market”.

On the downside Lenovo like most PC Companies is facing PC shortages.

Coddrington said that the shortage of Intel process due in part to Intel ramping up production for Apple iPhone modems was already starting to have an impact “particularly in the SMB and corporate” markets he said.

Last week Lenovo Group reported double-digit quarterly profit growth and its highest revenue in nearly four years, as strong sales helped it take back the spot as the world’s largest PC-maker from rival HP.

Lenovo said its profit grew nearly 21% to $168 million during the quarter that ended September, while its revenue rose 14% to $13.4 billion.

On Friday the Companies share value was up more than 6% from the previous day’s close.

Lenovo attributed the strong profit and revenue growth, to the performance of its core PC and smart device businesses.

Lenovo overtook HP to become the world’s biggest PC-maker worldwide in the third quarter, snapping up a 24%, market share primarily due to the inclusion of the PC business from Japan’s Fujitsu a year before, according to data-tracking firms IDC and Gartner.

Lenovo added that its mobile businesses outside China and the Motorola brand globally, which it acquired from Google in 2014, reached operational breakeven in the latest quarter.

That part of the business has been a drag on the company in Australia in recent years, as it failed to find a following and its traditional PC business slowed.

The USA is Lenovo’s largest market in the six months that ended September, contributing 32% to the total revenue.

Australia is one of the most successful subsidiaries for Lenovo worldwide.