Chang Cheng, head of Lenovo Mobile, has resigned. What does this mean for Lenovo Mobile?

On December 31, Chang Cheng, vice president of Lenovo Group and head of its mobile phone business, announced his resignation. Earlier, there were reports of his resignation. At 6 a.m. this morning, Chang Cheng confirmed the news on Weibo, saying, "I have grown up in Lenovo for 19 years and I feel grateful and thankful."

An insider once revealed that Chang Cheng's specific resignation date was December 18, the day Liu Chuanzhi retired.

Chang Cheng joined Lenovo in 2000 as director of the notebook R&D division. He has led the research and development of Lenovo Angel computers, laptops and smartphones, and has led R&D personnel in Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Nanjing to jointly create Lenovo terminal products.

Chang Cheng also reviewed his 19 years at Lenovo on Weibo confirming his resignation, listing the many computer and mobile phone products he had led, including the Tianqi, Tianlin, Tianyi Y200, the powerful small Y, YOGA, Z5, Z6, and the achievements such as shipping more than 10 million notebooks in 2010.

In June 2018, Lenovo China resumed its mobile phone business and formulated the Normandy Plan internally, focusing on high-cost-effective thousand-yuan phones and replicating Xiaomi's online model.

In this adjustment, Chang Cheng returned to Lenovo Mobile China and served as the head of China Mobile. Since then, Chang Cheng has actively interacted with netizens on Weibo, "touching porcelain" other brands of mobile phones, and was even called "Magneto" and "Chang Zhanggui" by netizens. As a result, Chang Cheng has accumulated more than 3 million fans on Weibo, and can be called the "Lenovo mobile phone spokesperson" in the minds of consumers.

At the beginning of 2019, Chang Cheng said in an interview that Lenovo Mobile would no longer frantically "fight against competitors" this year, but would "fight against users" and focus on creating products. At that time, he said that the mobile phone industry might usher in a turning point in 2019 or 2020.

However, in November this year, Yang Yuanqing said in a group interview that Lenovo's core goal for mobile phones is profitability. Therefore, it mainly considers North America and Europe, "markets where Motorola was relatively strong and profitable in the past." As for emerging markets such as China and India, although it needs to be "more ambitious," it still has to ensure profitability first.

Some outside observers interpreted this speech as meaning Lenovo Mobile will undergo a new round of adjustments and changes, while others speculated that this might be related to Chang Cheng's resignation.

In March 2019, Chang Cheng revealed on Weibo that Lenovo's mobile phone sales had risen from 32nd place in March 2018 to 9th place. However, perhaps because the overall ranking was still low, he did not specify the specific sales volume.

According to the list released by Canalys, Lenovo's mobile phone sales in the US market have grown well, with a year-on-year increase of 42% in the first quarter of 2019 to 2.4 million units, ranking fourth in the market.

It is reported that after Chang Cheng leaves, he may join Huawei Honor; in Lenovo's mobile phone business, his successor is a senior executive from Taiwan.