Zhou Ming, CEO of Lenovo new retail, recently announced that Lenovo new retail will enter the unmanned retail market and Lenovo will be the first 3C company to enter the market. Lenovo plans to launch 5,000 unmanned vending machines in the next three years. The project is in the process of tendering, which is a part of the Lenovo smart retail solution and a powerful complement to Lenovo's traditional sales system.
The 5000 unmanned vending machines will complement Lenovo's new retail sales system, especially for smart retail. Unmanned vending machines are equipped with a number of smart solutions, such as face recognition, pre-positioning, POS machines, User profile, smart location, advertising screen, dynamic games. The unmanned vending machines of Lenovo's new retail can not only provide advertising but also sell data, which is equivalent to the mass of a Beijing Focus Media. It will be a new business model of unmanned retail market.
 
Over the past 30 years, Lenovo has established a top sales service system in the industry by the experience of offline channels and scale and now has more than 10,000 offline stores in China, bringing it obvious channel advantage. This year, Lenovo’s new retail still has a big move, Zhou Ming said that it plans to build 5 flagship stores and upgrade 150 4S stores into the system in 2018. In the next three years, it will establish 1,000 franchise stores in the major shopping malls throughout the country and 5000 unmanned vending machines. The Lenovo new retail revolution can be said to be reloaded, breaking through.
 
According to the historical experience of developed countries, when the GDP per capita exceeds 10,000 US dollars, the demand for unmanned vending machine will increase dramatically. According to figures, in 2016, there were 9 provinces with a GDP per capita of over 10,000 US dollars and the trend of breaking 10000 dollars has continued to expand.
 
In Japan, there is one unmanned vending machine for every 23 people, one for every 40 people in Europe and America, one for every 60 people in South Korea and one for nearly a million people in Beijing. There is huge room for development in the unmanned vending machine market in China. The market size of unmanned vending machine in China is still small, with an average annual increase of more than 25% in recent years. According to statistics from iResearch, as of the end of November 2017, there are 400,000 unmanned vending machines in China and the cumulative amount of open shelves is 25,000. The number of unmanned convenience store has reached about 200.
 
At the end of 2017, the three Internet giants continue to take actions on unmanned retail sector: “JD.com” announced that it will build hundreds of unmanned supermarkets in major cities across the country; “Alibaba” launched new unmanned retail products in cooperation with “Midea”;  "Cheetah Mobile", which is owned by“Tencent” has invested in unmanned shelf ...
 
Unmanned retail has become a hot topic. Why? First, it is the retail background of saturated online flow and rising labor cost. Secondly, technological advance have given new possibilities for unmanned retail: the gradual commercialization of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things RFID technology, the popularity of smart phones and mobile payments, which establishes the foundation for the development of unmanned retail.
 
 
As early as the CES show 2018, Liu Jun said in an interview with the media: The new retail sector is bound to emerge unicorn company. If Tianxi Legend’s business is going well, Lenovo will soon create an unicorn company in new retail sector.
 
Zhou Ming pointed out that Tianxi Lengend is the first generation of Internet PC brand launched by Lenovo in 2000. This name means to create legend in the new retail era.
 
In the coming year, Tianxi Legend will adopt an iterative transformation approach to promote the reform of the new retail system. It plans to form a diversified new retail system of large stores (flagship stores and standard stores), small shops, shop-in-shops, unmanned stores, and unsold containers. The reform in the new retail sector shows Lenovo’s firm determination.