Lenovo's smartphone range finally landed in Nigeria last week after months of talk from the Chinese computer maker of introducing the devices to the African market.

Graham Braum, general manager at Lenovo Africa, has told ITWeb Africa that Lenovo has chosen the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria to debut its smartphone range in the Middle East and Africa.

Nine of Lenovo’s smartphone products, which range from affordable to premium devices, are now available in the West African nation.

The move comes after Braum told journalists at a briefing in December 2012 that Lenovo planned to launch dual-SIM smartphones in Kenya and Nigeria by mid-2013 as part of a global “ third wave” roll-out from the company.

The company missed that planned deadline, while Kenya has seemingly been left off the launch list for now.

"For the Africa roll-out, Nigeria was an obvious big market to go after first because of the more than 120 million subscribers," Braum told ITWeb Africa.

"The next six months will be very interesting to see how we engage with the market (and) how the market engages with us.

"We continue to evaluate the next roll-out within Africa," he said.

Speaking at the unveiling of Lenovo’s latest additions to the ThinkPad portfolio in South Africa, Braum explained that for the last two quarters the company’s smartphone and tablet sales surpassed its personal computer (PC) sales on a worldwide basis.

Currently, Lenovo is the fourth largest smartphone vendor in the world, according to Braum, while research firms such as Gartner have said Lenovo is the world’s top PC brand.

On Thursday, Lenovo unveiled the third generation ThinkPad X1 Carbon for the South African market. This device is described as "the world’s lightest 14-inch Ultrabook". The company also plans to sell its ThinkPad 8, an 8-inch tablet offering a full mobile PC experience, in South Africa.

“The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is currently being shipped to South Africa. Meanwhile, the ThinkPad 8 tablet should be available in stores mid-May,” said Braum.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon and ThinkPad 8 are expected to retail at R21,999 and R8,499 respectively.