Monthly Archives: October 2013

Launching New Product: Lenovo Yoga Tablet

Posted on by
Reply

– A response to Simon Montlake’s article “The Middle Way: Inside Lenovo’s Bid To Build A Better Tablet”

On Aug 29, 2013, Lenovo launched its first tablet product, Lenovo Yoga Table, which indicates that the PC giant is completely competing with its other competitors, like Apple and Samsung.

Lenovo Yoga Tablet (Youtube Video)

Nowadays, customers’ taste change very fast, especially in electronic devices markets. In order to win from the intense competition, companies have to keep on innovating their products and technologies and launching new products with fast speed. Market pioneers always have slim chance to take up bigger market share easily by increasing customers’ switching cost. In this respect, Lenovo is a laggard as Apple has launched its iPad 1 in 2010 successfully.

However, it is never too late to catch up if you know how to. Out of all the tablet followers of Apple, every one of them failed except Samsung. Therefore, companies must make sure they are on the right track. The once innovation leaders, like RIM and Nokia, all failed to sustain their competitive advantages by mistakenly estimate the market trend.

Mr. Simon Montlake has analyzed Lenovo’s business strategy on tablets in Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmontlake/2013/10/30/the-middle-way-inside-lenovos-bid-to-build-a-better-tablet/) and he thinks that Yoga tablet’s design is neat and attractive, but he is not so sure about the success of this new tablet. I totally agree with him. From my perspective, Yoga Tablet looks really charming in its video. Plus the technical features also make me believe it will be a reliable tablet. However, I still will not buy it. Simply because I have no opportunity to try it before I make any decision. I think many people will have same ideas as mine. So I strongly suggest Lenovo starts launch its experience stores in the world since they start to have such a wide and deep product mix.

 

CCTV Gave Starbucks Free Ads

Image

Reply

Last week, Starbucks was criticized for price discrimination in China market by CCTV, the largest TV media in China. The same medium-sized latte was priced 27 Yuan ($4.4) in China while it was sold at 19.98 Yuan ($3.26) in Chicago, 24.25 Yuan ($3.96) in London, and 14.6 Yuan ($2.38) in Mumbai, reported by CCTV.  According to CCTV, the cost of the coffee sold in China is no more than 5 Yuan. 27 Yuan for a medium-sized latte is way too high for Chinese customers.

Regardless of the massive discussion about whether Starbucks are supposed to be criticized by CCTV, the national wide TV report has surprisingly given Starbucks more attention in China. For those who have not tried Starbucks, they are so curious about Starbuck that they will go and taste their coffee. For those who usually drink Starbucks, they will keep on buying Starbucks as this will enhance their psychological needs.

Meanwhile, the stock price of Starbucks rises by 0.19% at $79.46 even though the Dow Jones Stock Index drops by 0.5%. Apparently, CCTV’s criticism has given Starbuck a free advertisement.

 

Currently, China market has been regarded as the second homeland by Starbucks as China market is forecasted to become the second largest market for Starbucks after the United States in 2014. Now Starbucks has more than 1001 stores in China, and it plans to open another 500 stores to more than 1500 in the next two years.  From 2007 to 2012, Starbucks’s sales in China increased 90%. In 2012, the revenue was astonishing 7 billion RMB.

Starbucks, the coffee retail giant from the United States, has proven to have extremely successful marketing strategies in China market which is a total different place than its real homeland.