Price differences make consumers feel cold. According to industry experts, consumers prefer to buy regular notebooks by simply installing Chatgpt, Gemini or other such high-tech generation AI (Gen AI) software, even free, or even free. For its part, laptop brands insist that businesses are taking up new products and imagine a future where AI laptops will be defaulted when purchasing computers.
But today, the pictures are very different. Data Reverse From Market Researchers India and International Data Corporation (IDC) India showed that as of April 30, the market share of AI devices in the entire laptop market exceeded US$5 billion, less than 5%.
To be sure, Microsoft has stimulated the “AI PC” since Microsoft has made the ubiquitous Windows operating system define it by placing a set of parameters.
Chip manufacturers are also easy for all noise. On April 24, according to Gartner’s 2024 Global Semiconductor Report, Intel Corp, the world’s third largest chip maker, said that the demand for its machining was much greater than its cutting-edge, AI-compliant processors at most two years ago.
“We do see customers demanding more N-1 and N-2 products so they can continue to offer the system prices that consumers really demand… (New chips) are great, but (they) have a higher cost structure, not only with our brand price lower, but also at lower prices,” Michelle Johnston Holthaus analyzed in Intels Production the Company post-port nows post-ears and-Aralne post-earn seak-earn calls-earn calls-aild post-earn sears.
No clear use cases
Bharath Shenoy, chief analyst at IDC India, said buyers have not seen clear use cases for AI PCs yet. “There are some sales in commercial contracts with businesses where new laptops are sourced, especially for brands with senior employees, just choose AI PCs to make future investments, because most PCs will adopt AI in a larger way over the past five years,” Shenoy said. “But for now, consumers have provided very cold responses to brands that offer AI PCs.”
Retailers also saw weak sales. The CEO of a top pan-Indian multi-brand retailer demanded anonymity because he had multiple marketing and undisclosed contracts with each of India’s top five laptop brands and said: “No buyers are saying they want AI laptops (largely not sold ai factter to an as aaa yi factor to aa ii factor factor factor factor factor factor ai factor ai yii prock factor ai game and so on.
Overall laptop sales in India rose 4% year-on-year last year, down 11% in 2023 due to post-pandemic stagnation, according to market data raised by IDC from MINT. Sales are expected to accelerate this year as the average usage cycle per user in India is four to five years, while 2020 and 2021 are the years when the Covid-19-19-19 pandemic forced everyone to sell indoors for work and leisure.
Pricing is also a key factor. Both Shenoy and Pathak said that although the entrance to AI laptops is boiled down to ₹60,000, most of these devices are still in ₹1,00,000 and above. However, this is also at least 30% higher than the average laptop price in India ₹As of 45,000 this month.
Although the growth itself is slow, AI laptops consistent with the industry are growing weaker than expected. According to market estimates, about 1-2% of all laptops are sold from “AI laptop” stands in 2024.
“However, this may change by the end of the year – 2025 is a transitional year for laptop usage behavior trends, and retailers’ marketing laptops are not fully aware of the key use cases of AI,” said Tarun Pathak, partner and director of Counter Point India. “That’s why brands are now working to launch and stock up with AI laptops, which is because they are expected to be sold in the near future.”
A future
Despite this lukewarm reaction, the brand has a clear value for investing in AI laptop marketing in India. Ashish Sikka, director and category head of Lenovo India laptops, agreed that today’s AI laptops are more expensive, mainly because of their upgraded hardware configurations, but thinks that the future will be different.
“We’re seeing AI PCs trigger replacement cycles for Indian computers…these devices could account for 60% of all shipments by 2027,” Sikka said. “Our early adopters have seen tangible benefits, and as awareness grows, consumers’ perceptions will turn toward seeing AI PCs as essential rather than experimental.”
Indrajit Belgundi, senior director and general manager of the customer solutions group of laptop maker Dell, citing an internal study within U.S. tech companies, noting that “by 2028, 98% of PCs will enable AI-ai-ablesable.” He further said that in enterprises, three out of every four IT leadership companies believe that AI access in workplace devices is a must.
“This shift is already driving change, with 32% of organizations planning to equip their teams with AI PCs by 2026. The main trends in this transition include workload migration from traditional data centers to advantageous ones, and the rising demand for localization, smart PCs.”
Dinesh Sharma, vice president of commercial PCs and smartphones at Taiwanese technology company Asus, acknowledged that AI has not yet become a huge promoter for consumers.
“The business perspective of AI value is fundamentally different from consumers,” Sharma said. “CIOs and CTOs have a greater understanding of the incremental value of AI. AI has added its companies. We see important empathy for businesses to price AI PCs.”
He further said that Asus is selling sales of AI PCs to small businesses – and, at present, the only sales drives for these laptops are currently businesses.
In the long run, experts believe that AI PCs will undoubtedly occupy the market. Shenoy said this will be primarily driven by AI-first processors that are completely transferred to mass-market products by chip manufacturers.
However, for these brands, the lack of clear market demand may be the recent dampers, the third highest-value electronics market in the country after smartphones and TVs.
