Lenovo Gust in Korea
Lenovo's low-priced tablets are immensely popular in Korea. The Chinese PC maker has emerged as a challenger in the local tablet market, which has been dominated by Samsung Electronics and Apple.
According to price comparison website Danawa on Feb. 10, the Lenovo Tab S8-50 made up 10.72 percent of all tablets sold online in January, which put the model in the top spot. Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (10.27 percent), Apple's iPad Air 2 64 GB model (9.34 percent), the Lenovo Miix 2 (4.13 percent), and the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition (3.91 percent) followed.
The Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and the iPad Air 2 64 GB version are priced at around 800,000 won (US$729) in local online markets. The Lenovo Tab S8-50, on the other hand, is sold for 199,000 won (US$181) per unit. Instead, the technical specifications of the model are inferior to Galaxy tablets or iPads in terms of a screen size, memory, and capacity.
Samsung maintained the top spot with a 27.90 percent share, followed by Apple with 23.20 percent. Lenovo comprised 21.68 percent of the market, helped by the huge popularity of the Tab S8-50. Hence, its ranking edged up by two places from 5th to 3rd.
Last year, LG Electronics' share was 5.27 percent, and that of Google was 6.2 percent, similar to the 5.54 percent of Lenovo. However, the number for the Korean tech giant decreased to 5.20 percent last month, and the U.S. firm by 0.33 percent, which placed those companies in the fourth and fifth spots, respectively.
Meanwhile, the top-ranked model is sold out, and therefore Lenovo is preparing additional supply.