PC manufacturer Lenovo, which launched its PC store for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in Pune today, plans to open such stores in eight tier 1 and tier 2 cities shortly, said an executive.

“We see the SME segment as comprising small office home office (SOHO), small businesses and medium businesses based on the number of employees. The PC store is for small businesses and SOHO,” Mr Rajiv Rao, Director - SMB, Lenovo India, said.

According to Mr Rao, Lenovo classifies companies as SOHO if they have a handful of employees, small businesses if they have up to 99 employees and medium businesses if they have up to 499 employees.

“Medium businesses are more mature, but many small businesses and SOHOs have only basic IT and many don't even have an IT department internally. They can't make the right decisions,” he said.

Commenting on the significance of the move to open the PC store, Mr Rao said that this was the first store in the world for Lenovo outside of China, Hong Kong and Russia.

A company release said that the Pune store would be spread across 450 sq ft and will have notebooks, desktops and tablets.

balaji.n@thehindu.co.in