Dell confirmed Friday that it plans to enter the smartphone market with wireless carriers in China and Brazil for its new Mini 3 device. Dell has inked deals with China Mobile, the world’s largest telecommunications company with more than 500 million customers, and Claro, which serves more than 42 million consumers in Brazil.
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Dell said its entrance into the smartphone market reflects its ongoing expansion into mobile Internet products and services through value-added relationships with operators. The company pointed to its move to embed China Mobile’s 3G technology and services into its netbooks earlier this year, giving Dell a stronghold in the Asian netbook market.
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Our entry into the smartphone category is a logical extension of Dell’s consumer product evolution over the past two years, said Ron Garriques, president of the Dell Global Consumer Group. We are developing smaller and smarter mobile products that enable our customers to take their Internet experience out of the home and do the things they want to do whenever and wherever they want.
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Dell’s Grand Opportunity
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Dell’s opportunity in China is grand. According to Research and Markets, smartphone shipments in China grew 30 percent to 23.6 million in 2008 despite China’s uncertain economy and overall stagnation in handset shipment growth. Mobile Internet applications, GPS and multimedia functions have been the most important drivers of this growth.
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Meanwhile, In-Stat estimates that the compound annual growth rate of China’s smartphone market will be 25 percent through 2013 and the next wave of smartphone market growth will be driven by lowered entry barriers for both the OS and the chipset platform.
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America Movil, which operates Claro, expects the Brazilian wireless industry to grow faster than other Latin American countries through 2010. America Movil has 25 percent of the market in Brazil and saw 19 percent customer growth in the third quarter, gaining…