India Is A Great Innovation Hotspot For Lenovo

Chinese technology major Lenovo has been reinventing itself in India, moving from screen to solutions every few years. Shailendra Katyal, managing director, Lenovo India, in a video interview with Pranjal Sharma, said India has become an important innovation hub for the company, which is also leveraging the country for exports. Edited excerpts:

- Shailendra Katyal

Lenovo has a long history in India. It's a hardware company, but is now transitioning in some way, can you give us a sense of what Lenovo is today?

We got incorporated in the country in 2005 with the acquisition of the IBM PC business, which was the iconic ThinkPad brand. Inherited a fairly strong business, which was largely B2B. Over time, we expanded into other segments, and grew really fast in the core area, which is what we are known for, the personal computing space. But as the market was shifting, we also entered other screens. We launched the tablet business, got into the phone business, and acquired Motorola along the way. Over the last 20 years of history, there was one pivotal moment where we said that if we really have to become a technology leader, we need to go beyond screens and also get into infrastructure. So, we got the server business, also from IBM, around 2015-16. At that time, the global strategy which was being executed at a market level was more about, if the world is getting connected, there's infrastructure to run the internet, which is where the server business fits in.

What are the key trends in the Indian market, both for personal devices and the business solutions you have?