Dubai: Lenovo is aiming to cash in on the multi-mode laptops which offers 360 degree of flexibility as PC demand is growing again in the region.
“The PC market has stabilised and, in fact, it is going up in the region. Consumers and enterprises are buying PCs again. They are replacing their old machines running on Windows XP with newer machines,” said Mohammad Hilili, Lenovo Gulf General Manager.
He said this year is all about multimode devices that adapt to customers’ needs.
Instead of the person adopting to the technology, he said that technology should adopt to the person.
“We are going to see growth coming in from PCs, tablets and smartphones,” he said.
Ashish Panjabi, COO of Jacky’s Electronics, said that Jacky’s is projecting a sales increase in the notebook category.
“Whenever there is a Gitex Shopper event, we always see a growth in laptop sales due to discounts and bundles given. While smartphones will dominate the sales, laptop will still be a crowd drawer followed by tablets and televisions,” he said.
In this industry, Hilili said that scale is important and if companies don’t have the right scale, it is difficult to compete.
“Geographically, we start with China and then everywhere across the world. We did it with PCs and now we are attacking the tablet and smartphone markets,” he said.
Regarding smartphones, he said that Lenovo has entered the Nigerian market and is available in Saudi Arabia and UAE. It will be available in other Gulf countries from May.
Third in smartphones
According to research firm GfK, Lenovo is the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the region after Samsung and Apple.
Customers are demanding more from their devices and that is forcing us to “innovate” and “we will be coming out with new products by the end of the year,” he said.
As part of PC plus strategy, Lenovo is exploring opportunities in the TV segment.
“We have our TVs in the China market. Once we have our scale in China we have it in other markets, but it is unlikely to have it in this region this year,” Hilili added.
