GST on PCs, laptops for students needs to be reduced: Lenovo India MD
Lenovo is the largest maker of personal computers and laptops in the world by sales, and the second largest in India. It is now also betting big on servers for artificial intelligence (AI), and will start manufacturing of the same at its Puducherry plant. In a conversation with DH's Sonal Choudhary and Arup Roychoudhury, Lenovo India managing director Shailendra Katyal elaborated on the company’s future plans, the current market conditions, and how the education sector remains under-digitized. Edited excerpts:
How is the demand scenario playing out four years since the pandemic? The first half of the year (FY25) has been reasonably strong. Covid was a disruptive period. The demand was high but supply chains were hit. After that the market did go down temporarily but has recovered. Right now, there is the sunset for Windows 10, which will go off support and that will impact enterprise laptops and PCs.
So there was the Covid refresh, the incoming Windows 11 refresh, and also AI. Overall demand looks okay globally. On the India side, given that we have a stable government, there is policy clarity and stability, there is PLI, the currency has also been stable. Some supply chain challenges continue because of geopolitical events. But by and large, we are very optimistic and we should end FY25 strongly. Our server business is also growing rapidly and we are excited about the AI use cases that are coming through.
