Asian phone manufacturers are done taking over the Eastern part of the world and now they’re prepping to invade Europe and the US.  Asian giants, Lenovo and Samsung have different strategies as to how they’ll be invading the West.

Lenovo to push smartphones

Chinese company Lenovo may soon overtake HP as the number one PC maker in the world.  But in the US, it only came fifth to the PC giant, with a 9 percent market share.  This may be due to the overall PC market slump, as more people choose tablets and smartphones over laptops and desktops.

Lenovo has the perfect solution for this: introduce smartphones to US consumers.

Though the company’s PC sales are quite remarkable despite the overall decline in the PC market, Lenovo knows that it “always [has] to consider how to grow.”

Last year, Lenovo expanded its smartphone offerings outside of China starting with India, Russia and Indonesia, but it knows that in order to be profitable, it has to penetrate Europe and the US as well.

Buying its way in

Though the plan seems solid, it cannot be denied that Lenovo has a huge obstacle to tackle in entering the two large markets.  First, it has to establish its brand as a smartphone maker; second, establish a good relationship with network carriers.  Even if people knew about Lenovo products, a lack of carrier support would put a huge dent in Lenovo’s distribution capabilities.

Lenovo is open to the notion of acquiring a company in order to push its mobile invasion, as it has been quite fortunate with its past acquisitions such as the ThinkPad unit of IBM, the Brazilian electronics brand CCE, and German computer maker Medion AG.  Lenovo is said to be interested in acquiring NEC’s mobile phone business as the Japanese company is struggling to keep it afloat. It was also previously rumored that Lenovo was eyeing to acquire struggling smartphone maker BlackBerry.

Samsung’s push for patents

Samsung’s smartphones and tablets are already a hit in the US but with fame comes discord and it comes in the form of patent trolls.  Samsung is engaged in a series of patent infringement cases with Apple and to end this, as well as prevent future patent trolls, Samsung will be setting up a patent firm in the US, specifically in Washington DC.

Samsung Display, the display manufacturing arm of Samsung Group, has invested $25 million to launch its 100 percent owned patent firm Intellectual Keystone Technology in Washington D.C. to bolster its patent-related business.

This is the first time Samsung has set up an independent body just for patents.

“Samsung recently established IKT.  Patents are a good source of innovation and we also need to protect our intellectual property by strengthening our patent-related business,” said one of the group’s spokesperson.

One industry sources stated that Samsung’s interest in buying patents that concern LCD and OLED technologies stems from the fact that the company has “undisputable leverage in the display business” and that the displays will be profitable for the company no matter how bad the market situation gets.

IKT recently acquired display-related patents owned by Japan’s Seiko Epson last April 30, but the company refused to divulge any information regarding the deal.  Sources stated that the acquisition is LCD and OLED-related patents.

HTC’s defeat

Not everyone is having an easy time transitioning to the US or Europe.

HTC had big dreams for its mobile offerings.  The HTC One was received well, but unfortunately its product availability was low so not everyone who wanted one was able to get it, and some people just got tired of waiting, especially when Samsung released the Galaxy S4.  It also didn’t help that Facebook stabbed them in the back by alerting its European partners to hold off on releasing the HTC First, since they’re pulling out the Facebook Home app as it wasn’t as popular and in demand as expected.

It also doesn’t help that a number of its executives in the US have left as news of relocating the whole staff back to Taiwan surfaced.