Vlad Rozanovich, Lenovo President of North America, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the new technology Lenovo’s showcasing at CES, and what tech he thinks will take off in 2022.

Video Transcript

EMILY MCCORMICK: The annual tech conference CES 2022 is underway this week. Lenovo was one firm participating, and here to discuss the latest product unveilings from the company is Vlad Rozanovich, Lenovo president of North America. Vlad, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Lenovo has just announced new products, including the new ThinkPad Z series. It's the first new series from ThinkPad in more than a decade. Tell us why now for this launch and what consumers should be expecting from this new line of products.

VLAD ROZANOVICH: Sure. Hi, Emily. First of all, thanks for having me on, and happy new year. You know, you kind of mentioned it. This is the first launch that Lenovo has had of a new ThinkPad product in over a decade. And one of the things that we've seen, Emily, is that when we look at the innovation that needs to happen in the marketplace today, a lot of that's being driven by this new hybrid world that we're working in today.

And so what you're going to see out of the new Z series ThinkPad that we've just announced is a couple of things. Number one, it was designed with sustainability from the beginning. And so when we look at it, we've thought about, how do we start using things like recycled aluminum? And 100% of the aluminum used in the case is recycled. The other thing we've done is we've done things like vegan leather. That is also a recycled product. And so one of the things we've been hearing from a lot of customers is, we want to make sure at Lenovo, you are looking at building products that involves sustainability.

And that's not the only thing, Emily. The other things that we incorporate into the product is really things to live in this new hybrid remote world. We've included IR cameras, full HD cameras, acoustic microphones, and speaker systems in the device itself that actually make your virtual experience more realistic.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Vlad, before we talk a little bit more about the products because they look really cool, I mean, you're no newbie to this. You were at AMD, you were at HP. And congratulations on this position, joining back in June. But this has got to be a first, where the consumer now via Lenovo can actually-- do I get this right-- buy carbon offset credits when I buy the product. Because so many of us don't think about that when we're buying a piece of technology.

VLAD ROZANOVICH: That's right, Adam. This is actually something that Lenovo started 18 months ago. And so we started it within our ThinkPad portfolio, where customers, when buying a ThinkPad product, can click a button and say, you know what? I care about the environment. I'm going to make sure that I buy some offsets through a United Nations supported activity that says, OK, this is how we can reduce our carbon footprint.

And so over the last 18 months, Lenovo has actually contributed to saving 350,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, which is an enormous amount. If you think about it, it's something like 77 cars driving for a year. Those were things that we've actually done now so that when people buy our products-- and so we've offered this in our ThinkPad line for the last 18 months. And so as of this CES, what we're also doing, we're also adding it to our Lenovo Legion gaming system line, as well as our premium yoga line for consumers, so that if you're a consumer or a gamer or a small business or an enterprise, you could actually start buying these CO2 offsets.

EMILY MCCORMICK: I wanted to ask more broadly about demand trends that you've been seeing for your existing products, not only for the ThinkPad, of course, but for Lenovo's broader suite of hardware. Work from home, as you mentioned, has been extended for many people across the country. What's your outlook for 2022?

VLAD ROZANOVICH: Yeah, Emily, one of the things we've seen is that everything enabling remote work, hybrid work, is still really hot right now. When we look at from a Lenovo standpoint our smart collaboration devices, which is really bringing video conferencing back to those offices that are ready to reopen, we've seen wild demand for those product offerings. However, we've also seen enormous demand for other components, not only our corporate laptops, small business laptops, but we've also seen that things like high end workstations has really been a takeoff point for us.

In fact, we just signed an agreement, and we announced an agreement with DreamWorks Animation. In addition to creating the servers that are actually used to do all the animation behind DreamWorks movies, what we've also done now is now we've actually been chosen and have a partnership from a workstation standpoint that enable the artists and the creators to take advantage of Lenovo products, whether it's remote workstations or whether it's workstations back in the office, to really use our technology to bring virtual reality to life.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Vlad, when we talk about this hybrid world and part of what you're bringing to our homes and our now offices as well, the dual screen, tell us about that and why that's a game changer, but also if you can, did you release price points for some of these devices today? Can you share how much we're going to be paying out of pocket to get some of this cool stuff?

VLAD ROZANOVICH: Sure. So Adam, when you think about things like our Z13 product that we introduced today, the price point we announced for that in our ThinkPad portfolio was $15.49 US. The other product you referenced is actually a game changer in the industry. And I wish I had a demo here to kind of show off to you. I've got one in the background here that I don't want to reach around and get, but this is going to be a 17-inch ThinkBook product that actually has dual display.

And so you're going to have a really high end OLED display, 17 inch, that's going to be your primary screen. But then right next to your trackpad, you're going to have a full tablet size 8-inch display. So you can really-- it increases productivity. It allows things for, like, scrolling. If you're a financial user, you can put up a 10-key keypad in that slot.

And so what we're doing from Lenovo's standpoint, we've invested over $2 billion of R&D over the last year to bring new technology, new innovation, sustainable innovation to the marketplace. And so the product you referenced also, it's really a game changer. And here at Lenovo, we're pushing the envelope of innovation to bring technology to people so that they can create more efficient work environments for themselves.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Lenovo's new ThinkPad line has been working with AMD for those processors. I'm wondering how the chip shortage has recently been impacting the development and the launch of this product in any way.

VLAD ROZANOVICH: Great question, Emily. And so as you mentioned, the partnership with AMD has been longstanding, as has our partnership with other chip companies obviously like Intel and even Qualcomm. One of the things, as being the number one PC manufacturer in the world, it actually gives us a lot of clout when dealing with some of these chip providers. And so we have not lost that number one position. And part of that is, is because of these longstanding relationships we've had with our partners to not only supply the products we need, but also look at how do we create new products.

And so, for example, in that Z13 product that I showed off and mentioned, that's using one of AMD's top of the line, just announced Verizon 6,000 CPUs that was custom designed for Lenovo to improve battery life, create an unbelievable video performance, as well as audio performance, as well as taking advantage of things like Microsoft Pluton, which is their security chip that's actually enabled in the CPU itself that we are now using as part of our Thinkshield portfolio. So, you know, the partnerships we have with the CPU providers is actually something that's very longstanding to Lenovo. And because of our size and scope and reach and innovation, all of the partners are actually looking forward to working with us on future products as well.

EMILY MCCORMICK: All right, we'll leave it there for now. Vlad Rozanovich, Lenovo president of North America, thank you so much for your time.