The Philippines has one of the fastest growing PC markets in Southeast Asia, according to Lenovo Philippines country general manager Michael Ngan.
“The Philippine market will continue to grow for PC [personal computers]. It already exceeded 2 million units annually, up from only 1.8 million to 1.9 million a year in the past,” says Ngan, who has been at the helm of Lenovo Philippines for five years now.
A report from market research firm International Data Corp. or IDC shows that PC shipments in the Philippines rose 1 percent in 2017 to hit 2 million units amid the popularity of gaming and e-sports in the country and the digitalization of education.
The 2 million PC units last year included 900,000 desktops, 100,000 detachable tablets, 1.2 million notebooks and 950,000 slate tablets. IDC said “the mobility trend and large millennial Filipino population are propelling traditional PC adoption to even higher levels.”
Lenovo is the world’s second largest maker of PC, data from IDC show. It sold 13.76 million PCs in the second quarter of 2018 and accounted for a fifth of the global market. It also posted the fastest growth of 11.3 percent among the players, exceeding those of HP, Dell, Apple and Acer.
“If you compare it to other Asean countries, it is only the Philippines that is growing extremely fast,” says Ngan, who heads a team of 45 in the Philippines.
Ngan used to work for IBM, before its PC business was acquired by Beijing-based Lenovo in 2005. Lenovo continued its expansion over the next decade, acquiring more brands such as Motorola Mobility for smartphones and Fujitsu and NEC for laptops. Lenovo’s other brands include ThinkPad, IdeaPad, Yoga, Legion, IdeaCentre and ThinkCentre.
Ngan says Lenovo is also the first in the market to introduce a Google assistant display which will be available in Asia soon.
He says while Lenovo has smartphones, it chooses to concentrate on the PC market in the Philippines with equal focus on consumer and corporate segments. Ngan says Lenovo has a strong following among the gaming community, the education sector and businesses.
Ngan says that in the Philippines, Lenovo ranks second in the PC segment. What is more exciting, he says, is that the country continues to grow.
“There are many factors. The PC penetration rate here is low [which means there is room for growth]. If you have money, the first gadget that you will buy is smartphone. Suddenly, you will realize that you need laptop,” he says.
He says the Department of Education’s computerization project also contributed to a strong increase in the commercial space in the Philippines.
Ngan says the market is particularly strong for first-time buyers. “If you go to a store with credit financing or flexi finance, the market for first-time buyers is big. Most of these first-time buyers are in the provinces and tier-three cities. There are so many of them. We have business partners who even tap appliance stores to sell laptops,” says Ngan.
Ngan predicts that once internet gains speed in the Philippines, the PC market will grow even bigger. “We have slow internet. Imagine if we have faster Internet. The whole nation will buy laptops,” he says.
Since taking over as head of Lenovo Philippines in 2013, Ngan and his team were able to spur growth in the segment by increasing the sales of personal computers, laptops/notebooks, tablets and phablets. He led the team in strengthening the company’s retail presence by opening more exclusive stores nationwide.
As a global company, Lenovo reported that group revenue reached $11.91 billion in the first quarter of its fiscal year, up 19 percent from a year ago.
“As we persistently execute our 3-wave strategy, all our businesses made solid improvements in both revenue and profitability. Lenovo has passed the turning point and entered a phase of ‘acceleration’- accelerating the execution of our transformation strategy and accelerating the rising momentum in business performance,” Lenovo chairman and chief executive Yang Yuanqing says in a statement.
“In the future, we will maintain industry leading profitability and premium to market growth in PCs; return the smartphone business to health; build the data center business into a sustainable growth and profit engine, and continue to invest in ‘Smart IoT + Cloud’ and ‘Infrastructure + Cloud’ to drive long term sustainable return,” says Yuanqing.