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For any mouse potato – Lenovo is synonymous with PCs – a global brand, thriving locally for 20-plus years in India. The brand secured the second position in the overall PC market in India, with a 20.3 per cent share in 2Q25 and 19.6 per cent in 1H25, according to an IDC report. “We celebrated 20 years of going global and we’ve grown significantly over the last two decades in India. The future here looks even brighter,” said Shailendra Katyal, vice president and MD, Lenovo India.
Lenovo’s portfolio spans across its phone business (Motorola), PCs, tablets, server and storage vertical. The technology disruption with AI has led to stronger demand for its products. In the first quarter of FY25/26, Lenovo India clocked $960 million in revenue, marking a 34 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth. For the fiscal year FY24/25 Lenovo India’s revenue stood at $3.37 billion, 67 per cent YoY growth compared with the previous year.
The aspiration doesn’t stop here, the company is pushing the pedal to reinvent itself in the country. With innovations shaping up the future of businesses, is it really possible to predict how opportunities will shape up for the next decade or so? Katyal breaks that down for us in this exclusive conversation.
Innovations & AI Initiatives
For the past six decades, humans have been trying to make the machine more sentient and intelligent. And finally the expectations are coming together in the last two to three years. Katyal believes artificial intelligence (AI) is still at the early cusp of evolution. Lately, the entire conversation has moved from computational power to agentic AI.
“A lot of data and machines are to be trained on large language models, requiring large GPU capability. This is where you still see a lot of demand for high-powered computing. We are seeing that part evolve very quickly. Earlier, it was only at the backend on large training models. Now, it’s on small language models and device data,” added the MD.
As part of its 20th year presence in India, Lenovo introduced its ‘AI Now’ real-time performance AI suite and AI PCs tailored for Indian users. The company highlighted its strategic plan to embed AI at the device level. Its AI projects in India, combine hardware, software, and eco‑friendly computing.
A new AI R&D lab will support enterprise deployment and exports. Lenovo manufactures its advanced enterprise AI and GPU servers at its Puducherry facility under PLI and local manufacturing programs to meet growing domestic and international demand. It aims to export a significant share to the Asia-Pacific region.
Its new concept laptops and the Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus embed AI at the device level. “We have AI-powered phones, PCs and tablets. On the GPU side, we have the server business. We are developing agents of our own which are completely on device and will not touch the Cloud. This ensures security,” he added.
An on-device processing means the data and the model stay on the device itself, and the work is done locally. It’s a new capability, emerging alongside Cloud-based AI, where AI can run directly on a PC—no internet connection or remote server required.
One of the other growing verticals in AI is its AI PCs business. Currently, the AI PC market is already 20 per cent, including the penetration of AI PCs with 40 TOPS (designed to run advanced AI features), which stands at three to four per cent.
“AI PCs are becoming mainstream and it’s not just about the price. In the next three to four years, I would be surprised if every PC is not an AI PC. Going from four per cent to 100 per cent, can happen in the next five years or so,” he added. Similarly, the company sees an uptick in its gaming devices as well. “With advanced features, we are quite invested in this space. In the last five-six years, we do see PC gaming is the default for serious gamers. Mobile gaming is a light experience and we are geared up for both.”
To catch up with AI innovations, Lenovo is expanding services to assist workforces in adopting AI, aiming for faster deployment and ROI at scale.
Made In India For the World
Lenovo has expanded its Made in India manufacturing significantly, with all Motorola smartphone production now based in India and plans to manufacture 100 per cent of its PCs locally to serve both domestic and international markets. The company uses a combination of its own plant in Puducherry for products like AI servers, and partnerships.
Historically, Lenovo has been resilient and diversified in its supply chain approach, with almost 30 factories globally. “This is why we were able to maintain the top position in our core category even during Covid,” Katyal said.
Sales of laptop and desktop computers exceeded 302 million in 2020, a 13 per cent increase from the year before and the most since 2014, according to market tracker International Data Corp. Lenovo led the market with a 24 per cent share during the crisis.
Fast forward, the company has been consistently maintaining its supply chain with the same rigor.
“Across all kinds of consumer goods, technology firms, etc., we remain in the top 10 for a significant period. Last year, we closed at number eight, which is an acknowledgment of the investment that we’ve made in diversifying our supply chain,” he explained.
The company has doubled its India capacity encouraged by the PLI 1.0, 2.0 incentives from the government and continues to ramp up.
“For PCs, my capacity is still not enough to meet Indian demand. So, I don’t have surplus capacity to export. We are just hitting about 40-45 per cent of localization on PCs and we continue to invest in it.”
Motorola, Lenovo’s phone business, is 100 per cent made in India. “We also use our capability to export to some markets like North America. We’ve been making PCs in India for the last two decades in our plant in Pondicherry,” he added.
The company’s phone business is around 10-12 years old. Earlier, it had launched Lenovo branded phones in India; and thereafter in 2015-16, it acquired Motorola from Google. A recent report from August 2025 shows Motorola had 8.0 per cent market share in India for the second quarter (Q2) of 2025.
Sharing the back story on the phone strategy, he said, “At one stage, we had become number two in the country. Between Motorola and Lenovo phones, both put together, we were number two. But at some stage, we did not have the product strategy right; so, we started losing money. We felt we had to reset our business model there and focus a lot more on product innovation, rather than spreading ourselves too thin on managing two brands. We shut down the Lenovo portfolio because they were at times cannibalizing each other, and focused only on Motorola, which had better IP, better franchise.”
Dropping out of the top 10 was a conscious choice for the company to renovate its phone business.
“We decided that till the time our product strategy is not in place, we’ll not just chase blind volumes. In the last three years, our phone business has grown three times because Motorola has finally got the product strategy right. Now, we’ve got true differentiators,” he explained.
Sharing the ambitious plans about the phone business, he said, “The top five should not be too far away, because the business in quarter one has gone through some hyper growth. It’s all very sharp, intentional, strategic choices on the right price segments, and a lot of money in product innovation.”
Lenovo employs around 14,000 people in India. With investments in technology services, innovation, and manufacturing, the company is contributing to job creation in India. “In the last two or three years, a lot of jobs have been created in engineering, R&D, solution delivery capability, global customer service space, server designing labs. We have expanded directly from 500 to 2,000 new job roles,” the MD explained.
“With up-skilling in AI and new roles opening up, the opportunities are not just for India, but it’s made in India for the globe. In this whirling world of technomancy, we cannot predict a definitive outlook for any market, but we are here to stay and evolve, as we did in the past two decades,” he concluded.