DELL TO SPEND ON GROWING MARKETS TO DRIVE SALES

Hong Kong
Financial Chronicle

Dell, the world’s second biggest personal computer maker, will “redeploy” its investments to focus on faster-growing markets to drive expansion, the company’s chief executive officer Michael Dell said.

“We do see faster growth in some parts of the world and that’s where we’ll invest,” Dell, 43, said in a briefing in Shanghai on Wednesday. The personal computer (PC) maker will “take these resources and redeploy them in other areas where there are opportunities,” Dell said, when asked about the company’s plans to add to the 8,800 job cuts that it previously announced.

The Round Rock, Texas-based computer company has focused on emerging markets such as China to help challenge industry leader Hewlett-Packard amid slowing technology spending in the US and Europe. Global PC shipment growth slipped in the third quarter as the “mounting economic pressures” stifled demand, research company IDC said.

“We are certainly managing our business consistent with the growth trends that we see,” Dell said.

Worldwide PC shipments rose 15.8 percent from a year earlier in the third quarter, IDC said this month. The Framingham, Massachusetts-based researcher said that was below expectations, without saying what it had projected.

Dell’s market share in the third quarter fell to 14.2 percent from 14.7 percent a year earlier, IDC said.

Dell’s share of the Asian PC market, excluding Japan, rose to 9 percent in the third quarter from 7.5 percent a year earlier, helping the US company catch regional leader Lenovo, whose market share fell to 18.9 percent from 19.1 percent, according to IDC.

The US company has about $10 billion of cash and investments to fund acquisitions, Dell said.

“When I look at the evolution of the industry, there is definitely a move to consolidation,” he said.