Sunday, March 18, 2012
Dell Bets on Smartphone Sales in India
Better late than never. That seems to be Dell’s mantra as it seeks to launch its first smartphone in India – the world’s fastest growing and second-largest mobile phone market – to take on the combined Hewlett-Packard-Palm threat it now faces.
“We will launch a smartphone in India later this year,” Steve Felice, president of Dell’s consumer, small and medium business division, said in a post-earnings conference call with Asian journalists Friday.
Dell will also bring more smartphone models to China in addition to the one launched earlier this year, he added.
The move can’t come too soon.
Rival Hewlett-Packard, which leads Dell in overall PC market share globally as well as in India, agreed to buy Palm Inc. in April this year for about $1.2 billion. H-P is expected to use the acquisition to add smartphone market share to its market leadership of worldwide and Indian PC sales.
In India, sales of mobile phones far outnumber personal computers. For every personal computer sold in India, 80 new mobile phones were sold in the calendar year of 2009, according to statistics by research firm IDC India.
Commercial third-generation bandwidth services are expected to roll out in September, which is likely to boost consumption of data services on smartphones.
Finnish handset maker Nokia had the largest share of 54.1% in terms of units sold in India during calendar year 2009 followed by Korean firms Samsung with a 9.7% share and LG with a 6.4% share, a note by IDC India said.
Though no separate numbers on smartphone sales in India were immediately available, the entry of cheap Indian-branded and Chinese-made copies of Nokia, Blackberry and iPhone smartphones may spoil the party for Dell, H-P and other smartphone makers including Apple.
The mobile phone market has got more crowded and fragmented, said IDC India.
“The rise of ‘copycat’ models that have looks and aesthetics resembling those of high-end smartphones which are often available for as little as one-tenth of the average sales value of a smartphone have led to this,” the research firm added.
Also, price-conscious consumers have forced intensely competitive operators to charge a pittance for voice calls, so it is still difficult to sell unlimited data plans, none of which cost less than $20 dollars a month.
Despite this, the need of the average Indian to access information and use services like learning English or booking train tickets on mobile phones should help Dell in its smartphone venture eventually.
“We will launch a smartphone in India later this year,” Steve Felice, president of Dell’s consumer, small and medium business division, said in a post-earnings conference call with Asian journalists Friday.
Dell will also bring more smartphone models to China in addition to the one launched earlier this year, he added.
The move can’t come too soon.
Rival Hewlett-Packard, which leads Dell in overall PC market share globally as well as in India, agreed to buy Palm Inc. in April this year for about $1.2 billion. H-P is expected to use the acquisition to add smartphone market share to its market leadership of worldwide and Indian PC sales.
In India, sales of mobile phones far outnumber personal computers. For every personal computer sold in India, 80 new mobile phones were sold in the calendar year of 2009, according to statistics by research firm IDC India.
Commercial third-generation bandwidth services are expected to roll out in September, which is likely to boost consumption of data services on smartphones.
Finnish handset maker Nokia had the largest share of 54.1% in terms of units sold in India during calendar year 2009 followed by Korean firms Samsung with a 9.7% share and LG with a 6.4% share, a note by IDC India said.
Though no separate numbers on smartphone sales in India were immediately available, the entry of cheap Indian-branded and Chinese-made copies of Nokia, Blackberry and iPhone smartphones may spoil the party for Dell, H-P and other smartphone makers including Apple.
The mobile phone market has got more crowded and fragmented, said IDC India.
“The rise of ‘copycat’ models that have looks and aesthetics resembling those of high-end smartphones which are often available for as little as one-tenth of the average sales value of a smartphone have led to this,” the research firm added.
Also, price-conscious consumers have forced intensely competitive operators to charge a pittance for voice calls, so it is still difficult to sell unlimited data plans, none of which cost less than $20 dollars a month.
Despite this, the need of the average Indian to access information and use services like learning English or booking train tickets on mobile phones should help Dell in its smartphone venture eventually.
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