Lenovo will offer discounts on existing models sold offline, as it aims 
to address a larger share of the Indian smartphone market this festival season.
While the company will not drop prices of its popular models, discounts through cashbacks and buybacks will be offered during Diwali.
The company, which also owns the Motorola brand, will introduce a new model, Moto Z, early next month. Lenovo is planning to also open 150 exclusive service centres by March 2017, as it prepares to scale up its presence for the offline market that makes up more than two-thirds of local sales.
“Amazon will announce cashbacks for Diwali on (Lenovo) phones and exchange offers, while buybacks and exchange offers will be available as well in some cities,” Sudhin Mathur, director- smartphones at Lenovo said, on the sidelines of the launch of the Z2 Plus.
The Lenovo-Motorola combine has a market share of 11.6 per cent in the smartphone segment as per IDC. Lenovo acquired Motorola in 2014. The Lenovo Group said last month that it became the second-largest smartphone brand in India by value, with a market share of 9.1 per cent, surpassing Apple, in the quarter ended June 2016, citing IDC data.
The company will look at introducing new models across various prices to gain a larger share of the market, continuing the model it has adopted here so far. It will look at introducing 10-15 products by the end of the year, company executives said.
Since August, it has launched the K5 Note, Moto G4 Play, Moto E3 Power and the new range of 4G VoLTE-enabled smartphones A6600, A6600 Plus and the A7700 under the Motorola and the Lenovo brands. The Moto Z, scheduled to launch early October, will be the eighth, in line with its four-month plan till November.
“We continue to strive towards catering to multiple channels across the country, both online and offline. We don’t want to miss any opportunity hence we brought out smartphones for all types of users this year,” Lenovo India marketing head Anuj Sharma said.
Its 150 exclusive service centres will be located in over 60 towns that account for 80 per cent of its customer base. Around 100 of these will come up by the end of October.
