Lenovo confident of AI PC growth in APAC despite slow enterprise adoption

In Asia Pacific, mature markets like Australia, Singapore and Japan are seeing faster adoption in AI PCs compared to other countries in the region.

As enterprises in Asia Pacific look to replace their laptops and workstations due to Microsoft ending support for Windows 10, PC makers assumed that enterprises would be making the switch to AI PCs. Given the increasing use of GenAI use cases among organizations in the APAC region, it would only make sense that the AI PCs would see higher demand.

At a recent earnings call, Lenovo mentioned that it captured an industry-leading 24.3 percent of market share, with PC revenue up by 10 percent, marking the biggest market share lead that Lenovo has had in five years.

However, according to Ivan Cheung, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Asia Pacific at Lenovo, the current adoption of AI PCs among enterprises is still lower as compared to the adoption in the consumer market. Looking specifically at Lenovo’s devices in the region, the consumer adoption of AI PCs is slightly higher compared to commercial use.

In Asia Pacific, mature markets like Australia, Singapore and Japan are seeing faster adoption in AI PCs compared to other countries in the region. Despite this, Cheung believes the figures will go up as enterprises come to terms on how AI PCs can actually benefit them.

“What we are seeing is the consumer side is picking up faster than the commercial side. We feel it’s because the price may still be on the higher side. However, we also see from Microsoft’s activation data for AI PC going up as well. We believe moving on, when more offering is available in the market, the price band will change. In APAC, we are expecting AI PC adoption will go up 50% for consumers,” said Cheung in an interview with CRN Asia during Lenovo’s Aura edition AI PC event in Yokohama, Japan.

Currently, Cheung feels that enterprises are still sorting out how AI PCs can benefit their teams, especially when it comes to using the GenAI features that are built in these devices.

“When it comes to device usage for enterprises, typically they have their standards to follow. That they need to do a lot of testing. For example, they may not want to change the platform easily from one SoC like Intel or AMD to Qualcomm. Another concern would be the need to have a device that is fully compatible with all the systems they are using versus the AI capabilities. Hence, they may stick to their roadmap first before considering whether they should consider AI PCs,” explained Cheung.

Cheung also mentioned that the adoption of AI PCs will be more than 70% in the next two years. With technology evolving constantly, he said the cost for CPU vendors would eventually go down as well.

“If you look at the major PC vendors, everyone is banking or at least heavily dependent on Microsoft to bring the AI features on the laptops. Many people are talking about Copilot, which is a great tool. But as technology keeps evolving, we do believe that the cost barrier, as well as the big cost of time to develop those apps will be much cheaper. We definitely see more vendors having this,” he said.

At the same time, Cheung also highlighted AI Now, which is Lenovo’s personal AI agent that is built into the AI PCs. Compared to Microsoft Copilot, AI Now can be used in under 40-tops NPUs.

“This is aligned with our Smarter AI for all. Even though it is not 40-top plus, with a more affordable machine, we can also offer this kind of offering to the customer. It is just the beginning, because our devices need to understand users. Hence, moving across the ecosystem, we believe one personal AI across multiple devices will be our key development focus as well,” added Cheung.

The impact of tariffs

When asked if tariffs and geopolitical challenges could impact the manufacturing and sale of AI PCs, Cheung pointed out that Lenovo has global operations for manufacturing and its also not the first time they have had to deal with this issue.

“We have a very diversified portfolio. For PC, we are not only focused on either commercial or consumer, but we also focus on both. We also have tablets, smartphones, and also iShare services. That also helps us to diversify the risk. On our manufacturing side, we have around 30 manufacturing plants across the world. It also lowers our risk as well. And if you look at our senior leaders, they come from many different markets that can help us overcome any uncertainties,” said Cheung.

While Cheung also acknowledges that there could be some impact to a certain extent, he believes that because Lenovo has plants across different markets globally, it will help them lower their risk significantly.

“Even though the trade war has existed for quite a while, fortunately our results are still quite good,” added Cheung.

Lenovo’s third quarter 2025 revenue came in a record US$18.79 billion, while net income reached US$693 million for 106 percent year-on-year growth. Lenovo’s revenue grew double digits across all business groups and geographies.