The world's No. 2 personal computer maker Dell on Thursday said it would invest more in India in the coming years to commensurate with the growth of its products here, adding it expects strong demands in this part of the world to continue.
Micheal Dell, CEO of the company said this amidst the company revenue from outside the US during the first quarter surpassing the same from the US for the first time and
Brazil, Russia, India and China leading the accelerated growth in emerging countries with 73 per cent increase in shipments and 58 per cent rise in revenue that accounted for almost 9 per cent of Dell's total revenue.
"The Indian market is growing our investment in India grew close to 100 per cent. We expect to keep investing in India. We have extensive activity here-- software development, manufacturing, IT growth.
"For the last 7-8 years, our business and workforce in India grew tremendously. We expect the growth to continue so also the investment to commensurate with the growth," Dell said.
He did not give any specific figures on the investment or expected growth numbers. Even as Dell is cutting down workforce globally on its path to post higher profit, the company is unlikely to undertake such measures in India and China where it is seeing strong growth to boost its topline.
Dell, which lost the number one PC maker slot to arch-rival HP last year, is focusing on the markets like China and India to drive the growth. The company expects out of the next billion going to be connected to the web, most of it would come from Asia. Therefore the demand (for PCs) is going to increase in Asia.
"India and China are high growth markets the Indian market grew six times faster than our competition while the Chinese market grew two times," he said.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, which rose to prominence by pioneering direct sales of personal computers, saw Asia-Pacific and Japan revenue rising 19 per cent in the first quarter of 2008.
In fact to drive sales in markets like India, the company is launching region-specific products. Its latest laptop Dell 500 is aimed at India and China markets where it is already seeing a good traction for the product.
"We will have new products for the emerging markets the second half this year will see many such products. One example is Dell 500 Notebook for markets like India and China where it was promptly sold out," Dell said.
The $61-billion company has also made a big push to sell more computers through retail channel. Notebook unit sales surged 43 per cent, while consumer PC units grew at more than two times the industry rate.
Dell has opened a manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Chennai last year to produce desktop computers aimed at Indian market. The assembly line at Sriperumbudur has an initial capacity of 4,00,000 units, including its new Vostro range of desktops for the small and medium businesses.
The company that time had announced an investment of $30 million in the plant over the next five years. It currently employs more than 13,000 people here across three business segments -- call centre operations, research and development activities, and computer and server sales.
Recently, Dell broke from its 23-year-old global practice of direct sales to customers and started selling PCs in stores in the US. The company also had announced that it would soon start selling personal computers through Asian retail chains and stores.
