Lenovo bets on new products

The company launched eight products across price points under its new range of consumer laptops, targeting professionals, gamers and students

Lenovo is refreshing its consumer personal computer (PC) product line-up ahead of the festive season, to boost demand amid slowing growth in the Indian PC market.

On Monday, the company launched eight products across price points under its new range of consumer laptops, targeting professionals, gamers and students.

Lenovo India marketing director Bhaskar Choudhuri said: “We are refreshing our PC line-up. The PC market in India is not growing much. So in order to create demand, we are rolling out innovative PCs that bring more to the table for consumers and address the unmet needs of consumers.

This is in line with the company’s evolving philosophy of increasingly launching products that can be differentiated from the rest, by giving consumers improved user experience.”

The company was looking to bring new users and expect some increase in demand because of the festive season, said Choudhuri.

“Normally, we see a spike in sales when schools and colleges start, which is when a lot of students buy PCs. With our new portfolio, we are targeting students as well as those who like to watch HD quality videos, gamers, professionals on the go and those who like fashionable products.” Lenovo had witnesses a decline in market share in India and in the global market.

According to International Data Corporation, Lenovo stood third with 16.1 per cent of the PC market share in the second quarter of 2016, witnessing a decline of 12.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter over Q1 2016.

HP came first with 28.4 per cent market share, followed by Dell at 22.2 per cent. Overall PC shipment for Q2 2016 stood at 2.14 million units, declining 2.2 per cent over Q2 2015.

Globally, Lenovo maintained the number one position in the worldwide PC shipments in the second quarter of 2016, despite a 2.2 per cent decline in units over the last year, said research firm Gartner Inc. This was the fifth consecutive quarter of declining global PC shipment for Lenovo.

The computer maker had 20.5 per cent market share in the global PC market in the second quarter of 2016, followed by HP and Dell, which have market shares of 19.1 per cent and 15.2 per cent, respectively. Worldwide PC shipments had declined 5.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2016 over the previous year.

Lenovo acquired IBM’s personal computer business in 2005 and became one of the leading players globally in the personal computer business. The company is now eyeing the number one position in the India market, said Choudhuri.

“Similar to the Indian smartphone segment, where players have brought premium features to affordable products to appeal to the mass market segment, we are trying to bring premium PC features like the Yoga form factor (convertible laptops that can be used as tables as well), better video quality and better gaming experience to the affordable range of consumer PCs. In the long run, we are eyeing the leadership position in India,” he added.

Photograph: Bobby Yip/Reuters