Lenovo scouts for retail partner in Gujarat

After having teamed up with an Ahmedabad-based computer retailing company, Lenovo India, a multi-national computers maker, is now scouting for yet another partner to penetrate further into tier-III-V towns in Gujarat.

The company is in talks with Ahmedabad-based Aegis Infoware Pvt Ltd for rolling out 20 retail outlets under its exclusive retail outlet chain, ‘LES Lite’ (Lenovo Exclusive Store), a top company official informed today.

In an interaction with Business Standard, Amar Babu R K, managing director, Lenovo India informed that the company has been in partnership with e-Mall, a chain of IT retail stores promoted by Sai InfoSystems (India) Ltd. Now, Lenovo is exploring another partner to penetrate into smaller pockets of Gujarat.

"We have partnered with e-Mall for setting up 20 LES Lite stores in tier-III-V towns of Gujarat. So far we have set up 10 stores in association with e-Mall, while 10 more will be set up by December 31. Meanwhile, we are in talks with other players too for partnering with us to set up additional 20 stores in the state," Babu said.

As a part of an extensive retail expansion across the country, Lenovo is planning to set up 1000 touch points in the country, which would include LES Lite stores, of which around 400 stores will be set up by April 2011. Lenovo inaugurated its 100th LES Lite store in Gujarat today.

Speaking at the inauguration event, Alex Li, vice-president-HSB, Lenovo India said, "We aim to set up 1000 touch points in India to expand our reach to the consumers in smaller towns. These retail outlets will help consumers to have easy access to Lenovo products as well as services."

Lenovo holds about 20 per cent market share in Gujarat in computers segment, while nationally it has achieved fourth position with market share of 9.2 per cent among the top branded players, which includes Dell, HP and Acer.

"We believe Lonovo has a huge potential in Indian market. In China we hold top position with about 30 per cent of market share. As Gujarat has become an industrial hub with vibrant business environment, we put special emphasis on developing our retail presence in the state," Babu said, adding that the company had grown about two times of market growth in the state during past couple of years.

Vijay Mandora, chief executive officer, e-Mall informed that the company has partnered with Lenovo to achieve higher business from the smaller towns. Meanwhile the Ahmedabad-based computer retailing major also plans a total of 50 retail stores across country.

"We already have 10 eMall stores across Gujarat, while 20 will come up in partnership with Lenovo by December-end. We have planned 20 more retail outlets outside Gujarat also in due course of time," added Mandora, who plans an investment of around Rs 50 crore by next financial year.

Quoting a report from International Data Corporation (IDC), Babu informed that the computer market in India is worth 10 million units per annum, while that of China is understood to be around 50 million units.

Commenting about the company’s production, Babu mentioned that the company had an installed capacity of 2 million units per year, which according to him, was sufficient to meet the market demand for next two years.

“We have sufficient manufacturing capacity at our Pondicherry facility. This can meet the market requirement for next two years, post which we may think for capacity expansion,” noted Babu.