Vuzix Corporation is launching its M100 Smart Glasses in China in collaboration with Lenovo, the global personal technology company and world's second largest PC company. Vuzix is a supplier of Video Eyewear and Smart Glasses for consumser, commercial and entertaiment use. Vuzix made the announcement of their partnership with Lenovo recently and said that the Smart Glass product will be co-branded as Vuzix-Lenovo.
According to Vuzix, the marketing of the M100 Smart Glasses in China will be carried out by Lenovo as part of Lenovo's Business Development (NBD) brand. Via the partnership, Vuzix becomes the exclusive third party provider of smart glasses to Lenovo in China with possible expansion to other countries and product segments in future. Vuzix said that they have jointly developed the M100 Smart Glasses, customizing it to fit the Chinese users by featuring the Chinese language, voice recognition, mapping and numerous other domestic cloud based services.
The M100 Smart Glasses is expected to be available across China later this quarter and Lenovo will be rolling out marketing and sales initiatives across the country to push the product to potential customers. Vuzix added that the partnership with Lenovo has opened doors for it to have direct access into China, whose Smart Glasses market is expected to reach 40 million sales and revenue of USD1.9 billion in 2015, based on estimates from the The Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK) under the government sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute, as cited by Vuzix in its statement.
"China is a significant milestone for us and for the wearable industry. Lenovo is world renowned for its high quality products and exceptional engineering, making them the most ideal partner with which to bring our M100 Smart Glasses to China. As Lenovo is number one worldwide in supplying computers to business and the public sector and the number 3 supplier of smart-connected devices (smartphones and tablets), we see strong market opportunities for our M100 as it was specifically designed for those markets. Additionally we hope the M100 is just the first in a line of future products the companies may introduce together incorporating Vuzix' video eyewear technology for sale in China and perhaps elsewhere."
- Paul Travers, Chief Executive Officer, Vuzix
"Lenovo is always seeking new and innovative products that merge and integrate technology into products that offer our customers a high degree of functionality and convenience. The advent of wearable technologies and specifically Smart Glasses, exceeds that goal and provides a new level of mobility in computing and communications systems. As an established and leading supplier of smart glasses technology, Vuzix was an obvious choice for this strategic partnership."
- Yuli Bai, Vice-President, Lenovo Group
