Covid-19 impact: Lenovo sees increased demand of laptops, ‘users going up value chain’

Katyal says the surge in demand comes from those who are upgrading their laptops to be used for work from home purposes, which is the new segment that never existed before. This has resulted in a spike in sales of laptops in the mainstream segment. “People are moving up the value chain in terms of buying a full solution and not settling for entry-level products,” he said.

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Katyal expects to see a lot of changes in the PC segment as a result of COVID-19. He says the unprecedented surge in people working from home as well as students attending online classes will eventually prompt an increase in sales of laptops. “A lot of people now realise that if they had bought a product two to three years back, that device won’t be fully sufficient for work from home or learn from the home requirement,” he said. Katyal said the pandemic will likely increase the penetrations of PCs India, which is still on the lower side.

Although Katyal does see a spike in sales of laptops in India due to the coronavirus lockdown, he fears the negative outlook in the economy may slow down the demand for PCs. “The negative factor may start coming in later when the full economic impact of Covid-19 comes in. There could be a slowdown in the longer run,” he adds.

Katyal said while the supply chain is back to normal in China, the bigger issue the company currently faces is handling logistics.

In India, PC shipments for the first quarter reached only 1.8 million due to the nationwide lockdown, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. In fact, the traditional PC market, which comprises desktops, notebooks, and workstations, declined by 16.7 per cent year-on-year. Lenovo secured the third position with a market share of 20 per cent.

Katyal said while the supply chain is back to normal in China, the bigger issue the company currently faces is handling logistics. “The large part of this category is imported, he said, adding that while most brands have local manufacturing, the percentage contribution of local manufacturing is low in our industry.” According to Katyal, supply lead times have increased from two weeks to four weeks but he was optimistic that it will be under control soon.

Tapping into new emerging demand for laptops in India, Lenovo has introduced the IdeaPad Slim 3 in the market. Available in 14-inch and 15-inch screen sizes, the IdeaPad Slim 3 is a thin-and-light machine, featuring Intel’s 10th generation processors, hybrid storage, Wi-Fi 6, and more. The notebook starts at Rs 26,990 and goes up to Rs 40,990. Interestingly, the launch of IdeaPad Slim 3 comes a day before the release of Xiaomi’s first laptop in India.