Corporate China | Weibo: Lenovo, Xioami, Huawei in price wars, tributes for IDG founder

The number 1,000 took on new significance in the blogosphere this past week, with tech titans Lenovo (0992.HK), Huawei and Xiaomi in a sudden new rush to chop prices for some of their newest products to under 1,000 yuan (HK1,260). The number translates to roughly US$160, and is certainly not a bad price for the relatively high quality smartphones and tablet PCs that are suddenly being sold by the trio at that price and even less. 

Meantime, tech executives were also paying tribute on their microblogs to Pat McGovern, the billionaire founder of the IDG media empire that was one of earliest venture capital investors to realize the potential of China's Internet. McGovern, who died last Wednesday, leaves behind an empire that helped to fund some of China's most recognizable Internet names, including sector leaders Tencent (0700.HK), Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), Ctrip (Nasdaq: CTRP) and SouFun (NYSE: SFUN), and many others.

Lenovo vice president and China chief Chen Xudong lamented the mistake on his microblog, but promised that anyone who placed an order would receive the low price. Others were a bit more suspicious, accusing Lenovo of deliberately orchestrating the glitch to attract bargain hunters. Luo Hongping, an executive at rival ZTE (0763.HK; Shenzhen: 000063), called the "mistake" a case of hype, and also doubted claims that Lenovo had lost 100 million yuan due to the blunder. 

Meantime, Huawei was busy cutting its own prices for the large-screen 3X smartphone model under its newly relaunched Honor brand, which the company is somewhat ironically trying to position as a high-end name. Huawei senior vice president Yu Chengdong was busy on his microblog hyping the latest cuts that brought the 3X price down to 998 yuan.  

Some speculated that Huawei timed its cut to coincide with the newly announced pricing for the Hongmi Note, a similar model that has just hit the market from trendy and marketing-savvy smartphone maker Xiaomi. True to form, the microblogs of Xiaomi executives Tony Wei and Zhong Yufei were filled with promotional talk centered on the new large-screen smartphone, which will sell for 799 yuan.