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SLUMPING US economy hasn’t dented Dell Inc.’s bullish
outlook in Asia and the Philippines, with its executives
citing expansionary moves.
“We
recognize there’s an impact and we’re not giving a rosy
outlook but Asia, the Philippines in particular, has
been posting growth, especially in our notebook sales,”
Dell’s Asia Pacific and South Asia president Paul-Henri
Ferrand told the BusinessMirror.
Ferrand,
a former Nokia executive, said Dell even expects growth
in Philippine sales to hit 22 percent by the third
quarter of this year.
“That’s
on the back of strong Q1 growth of 90 percent
year-on-year and an additional 1.5 points in market
share,” Ferrand said on Tuesday.
The
bullishness in the Philippines, according to Ferrand,
reflects the regional sentiment, in contrast to the
recession in the United States.
Ferrand
said mobility and the need for access to technology,
especially small businesses of 500 employees and below,
have been driving Asians to spend on notebooks.
Dell
Philippines country manager Edilberto Bunyi said the
company’s forecast is along the IDC outlook of
22-percent growth in overall computer sales in the
region.
“We’re
fortunate enough that we’re already in the corporate
space in the past five years so we’re more than ready to
enter the consumer segment,” Bunyi said.
He said
that as an example of this strategy, the company has
tapped 200 retail stores to sell Dell products via a
partnership with three distributors.
These
are Wilson Lim’s Abenson Inc., Ricardo Lee’s Octagon
Computer Distributors Inc., and Betty C. Ng’s Accent
Micro Products Inc.
All
these stores would also be transformed into service
centers, Bunyi said, as Dell implements its hybrid sales
method.
“That
would be seamless for us because as we already have a
parts hub for our corporate clients; we can just
increase the number of parts there for the repair or
servicing of computers,” Bunyi said, adding they would
launch a training program for those in the retail
outlets in key cities.
Dell has
been known for direct sales in the Northern Hemisphere
and has applied the same strategy in some Asian
countries.
But,
Bunyi said, until such time that broadband access in the
Philippines comes far and wide, Dell would keep relying
on its hybrid retail system. “It’s still working great
for us here and at least we give consumers several
choices for buying our products,” Ferrand said.
The
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell maintains two separate
businesses in the Philippines: one in business process
outsourcing and the other for sales and marketing headed
by Bunyi.
According to its latest report to the Securities and
Exchange Commission, Bunyi’s office doesn’t earn or
derive income from its operations in the Philippines and
all its expenses are funded by the head office.
In 2006,
that fund increased by 66 percent to P26.13 million. |
