"We want to launch our full range of tablets in South East Europe this summer"

Reporter: How does Central and Eastern Europe compare to other parts of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region?

Ivan Bozev: EMEA is probably the most diverse region in terms of types of clients. It ranges from some of the most developed markets, which are the West European ones, to some which are the most involved in the catching up process, like the ones in Africa.

So obviously what is very different is the level of development. But if we talk specifically about the Romanian market and the South East European markets I think the buying pattern is very similar to the one in Wester Europe. There is a tremendous opportunity when it comes to new buyers that have never owned a device. The term we would use for this markets is "first purchase markets".

Reporter: How are the Romanian customers compared to customers in neighbouring countries?

Ivan Bozev: I think, and this is the tendency you can observe anywhere in the world, that new products are more interesting to the people. So naturally they want to discover new things, they want to be ahead of the curve and to hear about new technologies and innovations.

Reporter: Which are the business lines which have performed the best in south-eastern Europe?

Ivan Bozev: As you may know, Lenovo originates as a company from the PC business and this has been so far our core competence. And here we are gaining big, relative to our competitors. We have the highest market share in our history, 15,5% in the last fiscal year. Also,

we have reported the strongest profit close 1 billion dollars.

We are just own the verge to becoming the numberone player in the PC business and if we speak specifically for Romania or any of the south-eastern european markets the same is valid.

We have had the highest ever result in Romania, almost 15% market share, we have become number one in neighboring countries for the first time last quarter. So we are beating our competitors and we are growing.

However, this is not the end of it, we are ready, as a company, to venture in a very interesting and formidable market that offers immense opportunities, which is the smartphones, tablets and smart televisions market. We have only launched this business unit one year and a half ago in China and already the second largest player. We also started in other big markets, such as India and Rusia

South East Europe will be the next place where Lenovo will introduce its full portofolio of smartphones and tablets. So, we are ready to embrace this immense opportunity outside of PCs, in the smart connected devices segment.

The PC business is still huge, so we continue to be there, we continue to bring new products, we continue to inovate and try to dominate this market place. We still very much believe that market is there. I think if you look at the projections for the next five years indiciate that this market will grow from currently something like 350 million units per year to up 500 milion units an year. There is very much a market that we continue to be present in.

We are not blind and we see how huge the business with smartphones and tablets is and how quickly it evolves and develops. And we are catching very quickly up with technologies and products and we will start this summer in Serbia and in Montenegro with the launch of smartphones in South Eastern Europe. Also this summer we want to have the full range of tablets in all SEE countries, including Romania.

Reporter: Why did you choose to start with Serbia and Montenegro?

Ivan Bozev: Because we want to gain some experince. We wanna try out. We want to develop some of the capabilities, the distribution model. Our plans are before the end of 2013 to extend to the other countries in the region, such as Romania.

Reporter: The smartphone and the tablet business in Romania has grown quite significantly in the last years. Don't you fear the competiton for the smartphone business?

Ivan Bozev: We are definitely not scared. I believe the success that we've had in the PC space showes that we have laid a very solid foundation and we go about recognising the specifics in each market and profesionally adress the needs which exist there.

We believe we have gained experience which we could potentially replicated with new products or categories. So we are not concerned. Our expectations for the smartphone business is to penetrate and set the foundation which will enable us to grow and solidify. We don't have any particular aspirations in regards to reaching a certain position or market share in a given time frame, at least not yet.

Reporter: What is your approach to the Central and Eastern European market, considering it is a region where the income level is lower, compared to developed markets? Are you trying to approach potential customers which have never owned a device or to attract customers of other companies?

Ivan Bozev: Both actually. I believe we have a choice of devices that adress all needs. So I think we don't differentiate and there is something in the portfolio for every taste and every pocket.

What is common wherever is the quality of the product.

Reporter: What is specific for the South Eastern European Customer?

Ivan Bozev: Like I said, the buying pattern of these customers is similar to that of Western European customers. In regards to what devices would the clients opt for I think it depends very much on the need of the clients. Tablets, for example, are more suited for those who want to enjoy content, to watch videos, chat with friends or do conferencing or play some games, whereas when we talk of notebooks, these are more suited to people which create content, which create documents. So the buying pattern is determined by the need of the customers.

And what is very often the case and we just have to look around us and see, including in our families and among our friends, there are many people which have both. They have a computer to do some work and then they have a tablet device that they use on the sofa, watching television, to read the latest news on the web pages.

Reporter: What are your expectations for this year?

Ivan Bozev: We would expect to end on a high, as we started. Last quarter was the first when Lenovo reached the second spot in South East Europe. We gained significantly versus the market as well versus to the majors competitors and we are confident that given the trend, we would be able to grow even further.

Our aim for us is to continue to outgrow the market and to gain versus our competitors in the PC business. For smartphones as well as for tablets the main objective is to establish the channel to penetrate the markets, so we can establish ourselves as a key player in the so called PC plus era.

Reporter: How has Lenovo managed to outgrow the market in all segments, given the difficult economic times we are in?

Ivan Bozev: It is a combination of many things, firstly I would say the outstanding quality of our products and the innovations that we bring with this products to the market place, this is being acknowledged by our clients. There are numerous reviews that underline this assertion. The most recent was the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where we collected multple awards. We introduced new products such as Horizon, which is the first of its kind because it is not only multitouch but is also multiuser, or the Yoga Convertible Laptops, which created a new segment in the PC space, because it can change from a regular notebook to a tablet, by flipping over the screen. This are examples of bringing innovation to a market which many claim is comatised, something we disagree with.

So quality, innovation and the fact that we do not address one customer group. We have solutions for every customer segment and for each one we are lagging in we put more emphasis on improving our products.

Reporter: Thank you!