Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Dell in China More Problems Sooner

Dell (DELL) announced an interesting deal with Gome to enter the Chinese domestic market through what is most likely the largest retailer in China. Well that sounds pretty good. Chinese sales of computers are expected to grow rapidly whereas US sales are very slow. So China sounds very good. Right place and right time are very important.

The Chinese electronics consumer is beginning to become sophisticated as various offerings compete against each other. OH OH. Here is the problem. Dell lost its stature because other PC offerings had better features. Head to head toe to toe consumers who had choices increasingly moved away from Dell to HP (HPQ) and others.

Yes they will get some sales in a market that is becoming increasingly prosperous. But if they do not have the goods the Chinese consumer will also come to the same conclusion. Dell is probably looking at India to tap into someone big for the same reasons. Indian consumers will also be relatively informed and therefor sophisticated.

If Dell cannot crank up the quality of their offering and learn to match or surpass HP and others then the Gomes deal will just serve to highlight more problems for Dell. They will just get there faster.