The Lenovo Group has formed a new unit, the Mobile Internet and Digital Home Business Group, to make tablets, smart phones and devices for smart TVs and cloud computing. At CES, Lenovo gave a taste of its entry into the space with its combo slate/laptop IdeaPad U1 Hybrid and the LePad slate. LePad, an Android-based tablet with a keyboard base that enables the device to operate Windows 7, is expected to debut outside of China this summer. In May, Lenovo launched the Android-based LePhone, a touch-screen smart phone with a detachable QWERTY keyboard.
After buying IBM’s PC business in 2005, Lenovo became the world’s fourth-biggest computer maker (behind Hewlett-Packard, Acer and Dell). After four years of attempting to build its market share in the developed world, Lenovo restructured in 2009 to aim at China and emerging markets including Latin America, India and Southeast Asia. Its net profit for the fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30, 2010, rose 44 percent. The company has stated that it continues to look for acquisitions to give it a leg up in the mobile Internet arena, which it predicts will be responsible for 10 to 20 percent of its revenue within five years.