Shailendra Katyal:The Man behind Lenovo India's Success

Today, assembled PCs account for less than half of the market compared to three or four years ago. Katyal feels this number would further decline. “We have a youth- centric marketing strategy, built around themes such as sports, music and movies, to connect with the audience,” says Katyal.

Katyal blueprinted a plan to transform Lenovo into a cool electronics firm, targeting young and spendthrift consumers with an aggressive mix of new campaigns and much wider availability of products. Lenovo India has roped in Bollywood superstar Ranbir Kapoor as its brand ambassador. The announcement is to mainly focus Lenovo on becoming the preferred brand for the youth of India. Ranbir will endorse the company’s range of products.

Lenovo India has raced ahead of well- established players such as HP, Dell, and Acer. In the January to March quarter of 2012, Lenovo had 16.7 percent of sales in PCs.

Lenovo has emerged as the number one PC maker as per research firm IDC (Information and Data Committee) with a 15.8 percent market share in January-March 2012 period.