Dell to keep expanding its business in China

Dell Inc, the US PC maker that has recently gone private after delisting from the NASDAQ, vows to continue expansion in the Chinese market, a senior company executive said Thursday, downplaying the impact of changes amid its restructuring efforts on its operations in China.

A different financial structure following the delisting move will not have an impact on the company's Chinese market strategy, Amit Midha, president for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Dell, told reporters in Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province, while celebrating 15 years of its entry in the Chinese market.

China is currently only secondary to the US for Dell, Midha said, noting the company will continue geographic expansion in the market and bring more global products and service solutions into the market.

Dell, like its rival Hewlett-Packard, has in recent years focused on a shift away from the struggling PC sector to the more profitable services arena, as an industry-wide downturn has hit the global PC business in the face of a booming mobile market.

Shipments of PCs worldwide are expected to fall by 10.1 percent this year to mark by far the most severe annual contraction, US-based research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) said in a statement released on December 2, revising down its previous projection of a 9.7 percent decline.

By going private, Dell is believed to be more flexible in transitioning its business focus, analysts said.

"Changes at strategic levels are a must for traditional PC makers, which have gone through considerable challenges over the past few years amid an economic downturn and consumers' moving to mobile devices," Cao Yujie, consultant director of Beijing-based IT market research firm CCW Research, told the Global Times Thursday.

Chinese brand-name PC manufacturer Lenovo has mainly focused on going mobile, in another approach to deal with the listless PC business, although Lenovo has established its peak position atop the global PC battlefield, commented Cao, who believes the whole PC sector is unlikely to immediately trend upward despite recent signs of rebound.

In the third quarter of the year, Lenovo topped the global PC vendor list with a 17.3 percent market share, according to the latest figures from IDC. Its yearly growth during the quarter stood at 2.2 percent.

Hewlett-Packard and Dell, the global No.2 and No.3 PC vendors with a market share of 17.1 percent and 11.7 percent, respectively, posted growth of 0.4 percent and 0.3 percent year-on-year in the past quarter.