After bagging more than half the order for laptops from the Tamil Nadu Government for free supply to school and college students, Lenovo is likely to displace the current market leader and gain significant market share.
Lenovo hopes to emerge the number one personal computer manufacturer in the domestic market in September quarter and in the next quarter thanks to an order from the Tamil Nadu government for supply of 6.5 lakh laptops to be distributed free to school and college students.
The order will help the company increase its market share in personal computers to nearly 25 per cent from 18.1 per cent in the previous quarter. HP is currently the market leader in India.
4.5 lakh laptops supplied Lenovo, the $46-billion Chinese company and the world’s largest PC manufacturer, has already supplied 4.5 lakh laptops to the State government in the latest order. It will supply the remaining 2 lakh in the next three months. The entire lot had to be imported from the company’s various plants as Lenovo’s plant at Puducherry could not manufacture such a huge volume in a short time, he said. The State government tendered for a total of 11 lakh units under the free laptop scheme of which a “lion’s share has come to us,” Rahul Agarwal, Managing Director, Lenovo India, told newspersons at the launch of ‘Start up with Lenovo’ campaign to increase computer sales by making it easy for a person to buy a PC.
The PC manufacturer has chosen Tamil Nadu to launch its country-wide campaign .
At 10 per cent personal computer penetration in India is the lowest among developing countries where it is much higher. For example, in South Africa it is 18 per cent, Turkey 49 per cent and Malaysia 64 per cent, he said.
On why Tamil Nadu for the launch, he said that internal study showed that the State has always been education focused. However, the quality of education, especially higher education, needs significant improvement to make students employable.
Quoting Aspiring Minds research, a Lenovo press release says Tamil Nadu is behind even States such as Uttar Pradesh in employability of its engineers. There is a significant merit in increasing technology intervention to make youth more employable and ‘Start up with Lenovo’ should contribute to the same.
Bottlenecks The main bottlenecks affecting PC penetration in the State is lack of awareness of PC usage, availability and affordability of PCs, the release said.
Dinesh Nair, General Manager (south and west sub-regions), Lenovo India, said that through the new programme, Lenovo is educating the youth about the importance and benefits of PCs and provide financial means to purchase one.
Package Lenovo’s package for PC comes with a financial support on a wide range of fully loaded computers across all-in-one PCs and laptops starting at ₹24,990 with interest-free EMIs as low as ₹3,000.
For this, it has tied up with Bajaj Fin Serv to offer customers a nine EMI scheme divided into a down payment of two months of EMI, a processing fee of ₹749 and payback balance in seven EMIs with zero per cent interest on EMIs. Lenovo has also tied up with Tata DoCoMo for internet access by providing free dongles, he said.