China News Service, March 25 (China News reporter Wu Jiaju Gong Hongyu) "Every time I come to China, I see new buildings, new conference centers, and new technologies. The first time I came to China was in the 1990s. In the early 1990s, China was completely different from what it is now. I remember when I went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, I was surrounded by bicycles, which was completely different from what I see today."

　　Recently, Enrique Lores, President and CEO of HP, visited China for the first time as CEO of HP. In an exclusive interview with China-Singapore Finance, he lamented the rapid changes in China.

　　Enrique said that today, China is one of the largest, most dynamic and important markets for HP in the world. HP remains confident in China's rapid development, vigorous innovation and huge potential.

  Enrique Lores, President and CEO, HP Inc.

First visit to China as CEO of HP

　　In the early morning of March 22, a reporter from Sino-Singapore Finance met Enrique, who had been in Beijing for two days, at the HP office in Beijing.

　　Enrique said that this is his first visit to China as CEO of HP after taking office in November 2019. The main purpose of his trip is to attend the 2024 Annual Meeting of the China Development Forum held in Beijing from March 24 to 25.

　　"This is a belated visit. I believe that participating in the China Development Forum will be a good opportunity to learn more about China's development direction and share some of our experiences."

　　At the same time, Enrique said that he will also use the opportunity of this visit to meet with customers and partners. In addition, he spends time with the China team to understand what kind of support they need from the company to be more successful.

　　And this is not the first time Enrique has come to China. He said that he has been to China many times, and every time he comes to China, he will see new buildings, new conference centers, and new technologies.

　　"The first time I came to China was in the early 1990s. China at that time was completely different from what it is now. I remember when I went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, there were bicycles around me. It was completely different from what I see today." Enrique recalled .

　　He also said that China's progress in digital technology is absolutely impressive, and it is difficult to find other places in the world that have made such great progress in the past ten years.

  Enrique Lores, President and CEO of HP, accepted an exclusive interview with reporters from China-Singapore Finance

　　Enrique said that during the past few days in China, the team took him to eat delicious food every day, and he liked the food.

　　On March 23, Enrique also took time to visit the Great Wall and the Forbidden City with his son. He said that China is a place with a long history and many ancient things can be found here.

　　"This contrast of an impressive past and an incredible future is very unique."

　　In Enrique's view, the Chinese market is large enough and different enough to help HP achieve product differentiation in its product portfolio and leverage HP's capabilities in China to manufacture products for the rest of the world.

　　2024 will be HP’s 41st year in China.

　　"We are very proud to be one of the first foreign companies to enter China. This is more than 40 years of cooperation and partnership." He said that today, China is one of the largest, most dynamic and important markets for HP in the world, and China is still It is HP's source of inspiration and innovation.

　　"HP remains confident in China's rapid development, vigorous innovation and huge potential. HP will continue to delve into China, continue to expand its business, improve its capabilities, expand local partnerships, and contribute to China's long-term development."

  HP President and CEO Enrique Lores spoke at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the China Development Forum.

Artificial intelligence will drive major innovations in the PC industry

　　According to a report from a market research organization, global personal computer (PC) shipments fell by 13% year-on-year in 2023. For the whole of 2022, global PC shipments have dropped 16% year-on-year.

　　PCs are one of HP's core businesses. Enrique believes that the decline in PC sales in the past two years is more the result of the big sales in 2020 and 2021. In fact, HP sold more personal computers at that time than it had sold in the past 10 years, so in the following two years Sales have declined.

　　"We expect that in 2024, the PC market will stabilize and start growing again in 2025 and 2026."

　　Since 2023, artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT has attracted widespread attention around the world.

　　In Enrique's view, ChatGPT is not only a great technology, but also a great technology productization that truly triggered the revolution we have all seen. Artificial intelligence will also promote major innovations in the PC industry and change the way people interact with computers.

　　He said that by the end of this year, HP will launch and sell AI PCs, PCs that can run large language models locally, and this will be one of the biggest changes in the PC market that we will see in many years to come. HP is very promising. Confidence this will drive sales growth.

　　Enrique said that in order to launch AI PCs in the Chinese market, HP needs to work with local software developers to ensure that HP can provide customers with the local applications they need.

　　He also said that in terms of artificial intelligence, HP has done a lot of work within the company. If it wants HP's customers to use AI, HP needs to show internally that HP is using AI. At the same time, the company has multiple projects to optimize software development, such as optimizing content generation, simplifying and improving customer support experience, and more.

　　In addition, Enrique believes that hybrid office will be the way of working in the future, so hybrid office will also be an important driving force in promoting changes in the PC industry. The PC industry needs to design products and experiences to meet people's needs. In addition, future consumers and business people will also be concerned about sustainability, as well as security and privacy. (over)