In the escalating AI battle, Lenovo also began to “talkâ€.
Recently, Yang Yuanqing, the CEO of Lenovo Group, stated that in the next four years, Lenovo Group will invest more than US$1.2 billion (approximately HK$9.3 billion) in artificial intelligence, internet of things, and big data. By March 2021, Lenovo’s R&D spending will be approximately US$1.5 billion per year, which will account for more than 20% of the total R&D budget.
At the same time, Yang Yuanqing pointed out that Lenovo Group will cooperate with Google and Amazon in product development to achieve the target of 50% of the total revenue obtained from smart phones and other new businesses. The current ratio is 30%. .
"Recently, Lenovo's PC business has begun to decline, and it is often questioned by insufficient research and development." Xiang Yang, senior analyst at Electronic Information Industry at CCID Consulting, said: "Lenovo's investment in artificial intelligence and Internet of Things is a more sensible approach. Timing is not too late, and now many industry achievements can be learned, the key is to see the degree of integration of these areas and Lenovo's own business."
Bet on the future
The future is the world of artificial intelligence. This has almost become the consensus of Internet giants. Lenovo is no exception. Since the end of last year, Lenovo began to increase its actions.
In November 2016, Lenovo Group invited Qian Yong, former executive vice president of Microsoft Research Asia, as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Lenovo Group. Yong Yong spent 10 years at Microsoft, leading Microsoft's artificial intelligence team and all engineering teams in the Institute.
In February 2017, Lenovo Group mentioned in the third quarter 2016/2017 financial report that the group will develop new smart devices that will be supported by cloud and cooperate with cloud services. In addition, Lenovo Group is exploring smart homes, smart offices, smart medical and other areas.
In March, Lenovo set up an artificial intelligence laboratory, and Xu Feiyu, former chief researcher of the German Artificial Intelligence Research Center, was responsible for the research and development of the laboratory as a vice president. In the same month, Yong Yong emphasized in an interview that Lenovo Group has established a three-level R&D system for its business units, research institutes, and venture capital group. The business unit is responsible for product and technological innovation in the last year or two. Lenovo Research Institute is responsible for the next three to five years. With its product technology innovations, Lenovo Ventures Group will focus on the next 5 to 10 years.
Recently, Yang Yuanqing once again stated that in the next four years, Lenovo will invest more than US$1.2 billion in artificial intelligence, Internet of things, and big data. According to Yang Yuanqing, notebook computers will become more and more personalized in the future. Lenovo plans to develop new software for U.S. companies to develop artificial intelligence terminals, and will also seek to develop new systems that use artificial intelligence technology to connect personal computers. TV, smart phone and car entertainment equipment.
The focus of investment is on artificial intelligence, Internet of things, and big data. It coincides with the "Device+Cloud Powered by AI" strategy advocated by Lenovo Group. "Lenovo sells more than 150 million devices each year because of the device entrance, which allows better integration of devices and services and better user experience. At the same time, the back end has clouds, and through the cloud, we can better understand the user's Demand will make the service better, more intimate, and more personalized. The three elements of equipment, service, and cloud are organically combined to form a cycle of mutual amplification and positive feedback." Yong Yong pointed out.
"Lenovo's investment this time is mainly a catch-up and future-oriented investment." Zhao Ziming, Internet analyst at the Analysys Group, said: "The so-called catch-up type means that as an IT giant, Lenovo has fallen behind in the area of ​​IoT and artificial intelligence. Peer-oriented, future-oriented means that these investments are still difficult to make profit in a short period of time, but the outlook for the future is consistently good."
Hard battle
Although Lenovo's attention to the field, the future prospects are optimistic, but Lenovo's road to the future is still difficult.
The first is its own traditional business, Lenovo has obviously felt the pressure. This is not only the result of delays in Lenovo's mobile phone and data center business, which has dragged down overall performance. Even Lenovo's PC business, which accounts for about 70% of revenue, has started to shake.
Recently, the data analysis organizations IDC and Gartner announced the global PC shipment data report for the first quarter of 2017, respectively. The two organizations have disagreed on the global PC leader: IDC believes that Hewlett-Packard achieved the go-ahead and regained its leading position after five years; Gartner It is believed that Lenovo Group is still the global PC leader.
Regardless of who the world's PC leader is, the market share of Lenovo and its strong rival Hewlett-Packard (HP) has been far behind, according to IDC and Gartner. According to IDC data, in the first quarter of 2017, Lenovo’s PC shipments amounted to 123.22 million units with a market share of 20.4%, HP PC shipments amounted to 13,143,000 units, and the market share was 21.8%; Gartner’s data showed that Lenovo should PC shipments in the quarter were 12.377 million units, with a market share of 19.9%. HP's data were 12.11.8 million units and 19.5%.
It is worth noting that the growth rate of Lenovo's PC shipments has almost reached the ceiling. IDC and Gartner data show that Lenovo's PC shipments in the quarter have remained at 1.7% and 1.2% year-on-year, while HP's year-on-year growth rate of PC shipments was 13.1% and 6.5%, respectively. Dell, ranked third, was also 6.2% and 3.4% respectively.
Constrained by its own existing business, Lenovo's investment in new business, in fact, remains to be scrutinized. "In the four years of 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for more than 2 billion yuan a year, this is not a small number, but it is not too large." Xiangyang said straight.
The reason why this R&D investment is “not too small is not too big†actually reveals the fierce external competition that Lenovo is currently facing. According to the reporter’s combing, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent have all deployed in the field of artificial intelligence. Among them, Baidu proposed the establishment of the Deep Learning Institute in 2013 and the Silicon Valley Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in April of the same year. Today, Baidu unmanned vehicle, degree secret, Baidu AR and Baidu medical brains have their own performance.
Alibaba launched the artificial intelligence ET last year. It possesses such skills as intelligent voice interaction, image and video recognition, traffic prediction, and sentiment analysis. In addition, it also launched the e-commerce brain and Ali Xiaomi. Tencent also set up an artificial intelligence laboratory in September last year, focusing on the basic research and application of artificial intelligence.
"Now that Lenovo is still making artificial intelligence, it is still not too late. The key lies in the degree of integration of artificial intelligence and Lenovo's own business. It is now foreseeable that the combination of artificial intelligence and mobile phone terminals is also worth looking forward to in the field of smart home." Xiangyang said: "The key is whether we can quickly launch a product with market influence. However, 4 years of investment in R&D, it will take 5 to 6 years to launch the product. This process is too long. In short, we need to wait and see Lenovo's operational efficiency."
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