Lenovo wants to start a smartphone price war, but netizens don’t believe them
The PC leader is struggling to earn the trust of Chinese smartphone users
Chinese users love cheap phones made by vendors like Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo. But one smartphone vendor says they’re not cheap enough.
After launching three phones that all cost less than 3000 yuan (US$435), Lenovo said to Chinese media that it will start a “price war” in China to strip away what it says are huge margins from other vendors. It also claimed that in the next 6 months, they don’t see a competitor for its newly unveiled Z5 Pro, which runs the latest Snapdragon 855 chipset but costs only 2698 yuan (US$390).
In May, Lenovo repeatedly teased its upcoming Z5 model on Weibo, with multiple pictures hinting that it will have nothing but a screen on the front. Lenovo claimed that it will be much better than Xiaomi’s Mi 8 and will have “an extreme design that even Apple doesn’t have”.
Except… the real phone is not even close to that. Instead of being “all screen”, it has a big notch and a big chin -- like virtually every other phone out there, leaving people baffled by Lenovo’s claims of an “extreme design”. After the phone was unveiled, users flooded the Weibo account of Chang Cheng, Lenovo’s VP and head of mobile business, calling out the excessive marketing and saying the phone “successfully steered clear of all user needs”.
