Lenovo bets big on Indian domestic market

Not content with the success it has enjoyed in the smartphones and PC categories, Lenovo is aiming to grow faster than the market by attacking new growth verticals - mainly in the connected devices space.

Its market share has evolved, from just 7% in 2007 to 19.8% today, making it the 3rd largest PC vendor in the country.

In the case of tablets, the firm is at number 3 in the market with 10.6% market share. In the smartphone category, thanks to the Motorola acquisition, the firm is among the top 5 smartphone brands in the country. In the server category, the firm is placed at number three with close to 16% market share, due to its acquisition of IBM’s x86 server portfolio.

India remains a huge growth market for Lenovo, despite intense competition in sectors such as smart phones. “We aim to be the number one in every category we are in. This applies to even sectors such as smartphones, which has close to thousand players. Even the PC segment, offers good growth opportunities in a country like India,” opines Rahul Agarwal, Managing Director, Lenovo India.  With computer penetration in India still one among one of the lowest when compared to the rest of the world, Agarwal believes that there is huge potential for the PC and laptop segment.

There is also a huge opportunity in the government space. For example, Lenovo recently bagged an order to supply 6.5 lakh laptops from the Government of Tamil Nadu. To increase market share for its laptops and PCs, Lenovo has started an initiative called ‘Start up with Lenovo’. The firm has also tied up with financial services player, Bajaj Finance, to offer an interest free EMI scheme for Lenovo PCs.  Lenovo has also tied up with Tata Docomo for enabling its customers have easy Internet access by providing free dongles.

Similarly, Agarwal believes that tablets have a big opportunity in the enterprise. “We are focusing on major sectors such as BFSI, Hospitality, Logistics, Education and Telecom. Every sector has huge potential for using tablets for driving enterprise mobility initiatives. For example, in the case of hotels, checkin for customers could be done via tablets. A similar opportunity is available in the BFSI segment, which can look at automating the KYC process using tablets.”