Dell to Double China After-Sales Service Centers, Yang Says
April 07, 2011, 4:34 AM EDTBy Bloomberg News
(Updates with executive’s comment in third paragraph.)
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Dell Inc., the world’s third-largest personal-computer maker, said it will double the number of after-sales service centers in China in the next 12 months to meet surging demand.
The number will rise to 2,000, Michael Yang, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell’s president for the greater China region, said in an interview in Beijing today.
“Our investment is to show our confidence in this market and show our commitment to the needs of the market,” Yang said. “We are going to have sustainable growth going forward. The China market is growing very fast and there is huge potential.”
The company will also add 1,000 sales outlets targeting small businesses in China in the next year, adding to 9,000 consumer-focused retail stores in the country, Yang said. Fiscal fourth-quarter sales in China climbed 21 percent, as the company looks for growth in the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, Dell said in February.
“In China the market is different for consumer needs,” he said. “In China we have a multi-channel strategy.”
Profit in the quarter exceeded analysts’ estimates after business customers replaced aging computers and expanded their data centers. Dell is getting more revenue from products and services for corporate data centers, part of a plan to double sales from that business to $30 billion in three years.
Dell rose 2.4 percent to $14.78 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading yesterday. The stock has gained 9.1 percent this year.
The company ranked third in the PC industry by shipments in the fourth quarter of 2010, after Hewlett-Packard Co. and Acer Inc., according to Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Connecticut-based research firm.
--With assistance from Suresh Seshadri in Bangalore. Editors: Lena Lee, Suresh Seshadri
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To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net
