Dell hopes its new retail stores will help it sell to consumers in emerging markets buying their first computer, Chief Executive Michael Dell told a conference on Tuesday.
Dell, the world's second-biggest computer maker, has recently switched from a pure online sales model to build an expanding network of retail stores, putting its PCs and laptops within the reach of consumers without Internet access.
Asked at an emerging markets conference organised by the Economist whether he aimed to sell consumers in emerging markets their second computer, once they were already online, he replied: "With 15,000 stores, we want to sell all the PCs."
Dell outlined a sales method he dubbed dell.com@retail, in which store staff, for example in India, take customers through an assisted sale on dell.com, combining the personal shopping experience with the advantages of having no store inventory.
The company said last week that slow demand had spread from the United States to Europe and Asia, and had not rebounded as expected after the summer lull. In the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), however, Dell had revenue growth of 41 percent on a 46 percent increase in units last quarter, which it said was more than three times the industry growth rate.
Michael Dell said on Tuesday that emerging markets continued to be an important part of Dell's growth strategy. "Five hundred thousand new users are coming on line every day, and a large proportion of these are in emerging economies," he said.
He added that growth in cellphone sales in developing markets boded well for PC sales. "Users tend to buy their first PC about three years after buying their first cellphone."
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