Lenovo faces uphill climb to reach mobile phone summit

Lenovo, which saw its share price reach a 13-year high yesterday, is not expected to become one of the world's top-five mobile phone brands anytime soon, despite the company's aggressive expansion in its home market.

Market research firm Gartner had earlier forecast that Lenovo would unseat Samsung Electronics this year to become the mainland's No1 supplier of internet-ready smartphones.

Without elaborating, Gartner this week predicted that "three of the top-five mobile phone vendors will be headquartered in China" by the end of next year.

With mainland telecommunications equipment manufacturing giants Huawei Technologies and ZTE already among the leading suppliers of basic-feature mobile handsets and smartphones, Lenovo was tipped to be in a good position to join their ranks.

"That is unlikely," Alberto Moel, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research, said yesterday.

"We've estimated Lenovo's total mobile phone shipments in 2012, 2013 and 2014 to be at 29 million units, 40 million and 44 million, respectively.

"Those numbers would put Lenovo's ranking at either No6 or No7 worldwide."