Dell Posts 99% Growth in India

Leading personal computer maker Dell Inc grew 99 percent in the Indian market during the first quarter of 2008-09, a top official here said Wednesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of new Dell business laptops, Michael Dell, the founder and chief executive officer of the company, said the economic slowdown put pressure on firms to perform better and employ cost-effectively.
'Dell has faired tremendously in the last one year. On the global scale, we grew by about 50 percent faster than the industry in the last nine months alone,' he said.

Michael Dell said the developing markets like India, the Philippines, Brazil and Russia were the fastest growing markets for the company with India leading the pack.

Michael Dell, who was in the country for the Asia launch of the company's next generation Latitude business notebooks, said the company had posted a year-on-year growth of 50 percent each quarter in India in terms of revenue and about 70-80 percent growth in terms of units sold.

'India, with a 13,000-strong workforce, is the second biggest country in terms of employees after the US. We are the market leaders here in the commercial business segment with which we started seven years back,' he said.
Samuel Burd, vice-president of marketing for the Asia Pacific and Japan region, said the laptops were the thinnest and lightest ever models from Dell's stable.
'These also fit in an envelope,' he said referring to the Apple Macbook Air, which was marketed as thin enough to fit in an envelope.

The company also announced the upcoming launch of 'Dell Latitude On' - a trademark product that will enable latitude users to access their emails without switching on the computer.

Paul-Henri Ferrand, Dell president for the Asia Pacific region, said the company did not have any plan to launch its Alienware brand of products in India for the time being. Alienware is Dell's gaming division.

Dell