Lenovo Group IDG President Luca Rossi: A new wave of PC super replacement trend is coming

According to the Zhitong Finance and Economics APP, "We are about to witness one of the most profound and game-changing eras in this industry. 2024 marks the beginning of the era of artificial intelligence devices," said Luca Rossi, Executive Vice President of Lenovo Group (00992) and President of the Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), at the oath-taking ceremony for the 2024/25 fiscal year held on April 1. Starting from this conference, Lenovo Group announced the official start of a brand new decade embracing AI comprehensively.

In the previous fiscal year, Lenovo Group's IDG achieved strong performance with a clear strategy and outstanding operations: before the overall recovery of the intelligent device market, it led the way in year-on-year growth, further consolidating its global number one position in personal computers with growth significantly higher than the market growth rate, and maintained industry-leading profitability in the challenging first three quarters. Especially in the third fiscal quarter, IDG's global market share of personal computers reached nearly 24%, the highest since the epidemic; the smartphone business and tablet business both achieved double-digit growth, and Motorola continued to be one of the fastest-growing smartphone suppliers.

The performance in the Chinese market is also impressive: the market share of personal computers is close to 40%, achieving growth better than the market, and the sales market share of consumer and small and medium-sized enterprise businesses reached 37%.

In the past year, despite many uncertainties in the macro environment, the global PC market has shown signs of recovery and improvement. According to IDC's forecast, with the end of the previous device refresh cycle and Windows 10 support, the PC market is expected to see a mild recovery starting in the second half of 2024. The rise of hybrid artificial intelligence will further stimulate the demand for AI PCs, "this will truly trigger a new wave of super replacement cycle," Luca said.

According to Gartner's latest forecast, by the end of 2024, AI PC shipments will reach 54.5 million units, accounting for 22% of PC shipments; Canalys predicts that AI-compatible personal computers are expected to reach a penetration rate of 37% in 2025, and the penetration rate will reach 60% by 2027.

Facing the huge opportunities for growth, profitability, and market expansion brought by AI large models, Luca believes that with Lenovo's panoramic AI layout "from pocket to cloud," IDG is fully equipped with unique advantages to lead the new wave of AI. It is determined to succeed. It is introduced that IDG has one of the most comprehensive product portfolios in the industry, covering all mainstream technology trends, including multi-device collaboration, innovative design, security and privacy, services, sustainability, and hybrid artificial intelligence At the oath-taking ceremony, Luca officially announced a new deployment for the IDG in the new fiscal year, anchoring AI development: while consolidating Lenovo Group's leading position in the PC market, promoting growth in the high-end market, and maintaining industry-leading profitability; striving to become the undisputed leader in the AI PC field; focusing on other smart device products adjacent to personal computers and software/service needs, aiming to double global smartphone sales by 2027.

Currently, IDG is steadily advancing a clear AI device development roadmap, continuously investing in artificial intelligence technology innovation, deepening cooperation with other leading companies in the field of artificial intelligence through the BLP (Build, Link, Partner) model, firmly grasping the huge growth opportunities of the AI era.

Specifically, IDG's innovation breakthroughs first manifest in the improvement of local large model inference speed, language model compression, and memory consumption. Secondly, in terms of hardware, Lenovo's AI chips can face different application scenarios and workloads, more reasonably calling upon the computing resources of CPU, GPU, and NPU. In terms of AI native software applications, Lenovo has launched the Yoga Creator Zone software that supports offline use by users, as well as a personal AI intelligent body that will be launched in China in the first half of this year. In addition, the new "Super Connect Smart Connect" software will achieve seamless collaboration between smart devices, fully optimizing the personal AI experience for end users.

To ensure Lenovo's leading position in the field of AI devices, IDG and Lenovo Research Institute have jointly established an AI Center of Competence to manage the product roadmap. The technical path of running AI large models on PCs will also quickly extend to smartphones, tablets, and other smart terminals, and the unstoppable trend of comprehensive AI transformation of terminals.

Luca revealed that Lenovo's new AI devices, including the Think, Yoga, Legion, and Motorola brands, are ready to support the entry of local and hybrid artificial intelligence applications into the market in a faster, safer, and more reliable manner. In addition, Yang Yuanqing, Chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, announced at the oath-taking ceremony that on April 18th, the Lenovo Tech World Innovation Conference will be held in Shanghai, where a truly meaningful AI PC with 5 major features will debut in the Chinese market.

Looking towards the new AI decade, Yang Yuanqing has higher expectations for IDG: "Continue to maintain the industry-leading market position and profitability, the most important thing is to lead the AI PC wave. Smartphones must maintain strong momentum and implement the three-year growth plan goals"