Lenovo revs up for PC pole position

Lenovo revs up for PC pole position

Lenovo, the world's largest computer maker, has earmarked up to 800 million baht for a two-year business enhancement programme aimed at becoming the market leader in Thailand.

The move by the Chinese computer company is part of the group's strategy to expand its business in emerging markets, said Jeerawut Wongpimonporn, country general manager of Lenovo Thailand.

As of last September, Acer took pole position in Thailand's personal computer market, followed by Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo.

"We aim to become No.1 in the Thai computer market, having at least a 20% market share by 2017, up from 12% last year," said Mr Jeerawut.

The budget will be spent on expanding its distribution channels to provinces nationwide, including tapping into the online channel.

The company plans to increase its service centres to cover 20 provinces with 70 shops, in a drive to expand its customer base to the provincial market.

Lenovo is also on the verge of enhancing its logistic and inventory management systems to improve its product delivery service faster and more efficiency, said Mr Jeerawut.

He believes the overall PC market in Thailand this year will rebound back to positive growth, on par with the figure in 2013.

The local PC market contracted 5% the past two years due to the political impasse and the popularity of tablets eating into the market share of PC and laptops.

However, he said the local tablet and smartphone market was becoming saturated, opening greater opportunities for the notebook market.

Lenovo plans to introduce more innovative products with greater performance and lower prices to drive its sales, said Mr Jeerawut.

To chase the rising popularity of convertible notebooks, yesterday Lenovo launched its Yoga Series for both tablets and notebooks.

The Yoga 3 Pro notebook features a 13-inch display and is priced at 59,990 baht.

Lenovo plans to introduce a convertible notebook priced below 20,000 baht for the first time in June, targeting the mass market.

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