GST rollout: Lenovo expects 5% growth in business

Computer industry is the only one which has a dual impact of GST, said Lenovo India CEO

PC maker Lenovo is expecting a five per cent increase in business following the rollout of GST which will now require even small traders to file I-T returns thrice a month, the company's top executive has said.

"The computer industry is the only one which has a dual impact of GST which perhaps no other industry can talk about. Currently, the belief is that a lot of the small traders will need to buy a PC to file their returns, because they have to do it thrice a month, and they have never bought a PC before," Lenovo India CEO Rahul Agarwal told PTI.

The company has tied up with accounting software firms to provide GST software bundled with Lenovo PCs.

Agarwal said that the market for PCs, tablets and laptops has not really grown in the last 3-4 years but with GST coming in, there is optimism in the industry that around 4-5 million mid-size traders may consider buying PC as well as accounting softwares.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the overall India PC market for 2016 stood at 8.58 million units, a year-on-year drop of 15.2 per cent over 2015.

"There are rough estimates that we will have a market expansion between 1 lakh and 2 lakh units till March and we would want one-third of it coming to Lenovo's bucket. The percentage growth from the overall point of view could be between 3-5 per cent on account of GST.

"The market has not grown in last three years so nobody is looking at hyper growth," Agarwal said.