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Seth Weintraub's picture
Seth Weintraub

Apple versus Google

Dell's Android phone for China and Brazil: How bad can it be?

Jeez, from the talk out there you'd think that Dell's just announced Mini 3 phone had no shot at success in China or Brazil.  Dell, even though it hasn't been wildly successful over the past few years, still builds a lot of computers, including one of the thinnest and sexiest out there, the Adamo laptop line.

Their history in portable devices is less illustrious.  They had the Dell DJ and Axiom lines which both didn't live up to expectations.  However, the blame for those failures might be more on the OS than the hardware. 

The Dell DJ was mostly just a re-branded Creative player with Creative's somewhat clunky OS.

The Axim line of Windows CE PDA products were the same formula.  Inexpensive, unremarkable hardware mixed with lackluster software.

Both products were sold in a market where better options were available with substandard OSes. 

There are plenty of Android phones in the US and the iPhone and Blackberry lines already have a lot of the mindshare in the richer countries.

I'm not sure the Mini 3 will be a success, but it has the hottest operating system on board (Android) and it is being released in the two fastest growing economies in the world (China and Brazil).  The two carriers that will be carrying Dell's phone both have more subscribers than any carrier in the US.  China Mobile has more subscribers than the population of the US.

And the iPhone isn't faring too well there either. After the first week it had sold only 5000 legitimate devices.

Dell appears to be entering the market(s) with a no frills Android device that is very utilitarian.  Perhaps a big chunk of those almost 2 billion potential customers will bite.

So, Dell has a shot is all I'm saying.

What People Are Saying

win mob 6.5

If a carrier wants to go mass it rather go mass with the Samsung Intrepid. It looks sleak, compatible with winmo 6.5, a great OS with amazing functionality

China & Brazil

"Jeez, from the talk out there you'd think that Dell's just announced Mini 3 phone had no shot at success in China or Brazil."

What do these USA-based "talkers" know about product marketing in China and Brazil? Not much.

Me neither. (grin)

iPhone...

Seth says: "And the iPhone isn't faring too well there either. After the first week it had sold only 5000 legitimate devices."
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There's nearly 2 million iPhones in use on China's various networks - Apple couldn't care less if they were legit China Unicom iPhones or not - since they are iPhones, it means Apple sold them, and pocketed the profits.

Dell will fare as well as it has historically done - lackluster - for the same obvious reasons.

Dell

"Dell will fare as well as it has historically done"

So Dell phones will be #3 in worldwide sales, like their computers are?

So Dell phones will be #3

No, they'll be at the bottom, like all their consumer devices that aren't laptops or desktops.

It's incorrect perhaps to

It's incorrect perhaps to say that the iPhone isn't faring well in China - whilst the higher priced with no wifi CHinese carrier version isn't selling too brusquely, the imported grey market of non-overpriced non-crippled iPhones from across China's borders is strong. Put simply - the sales of iPhone from the Chinese carreir isn't so hot because there are iPhones already in there that are better priced and wifi enabled (and likely either legitimately carrier unlocked, or jailbroken).
Apple's had this before - we saw lots of iPhone usage in countries that weren't selling iPhones a while back.

Will Dell's new effort take off? Well, i'd imagine they ain't going to be making too much in comparison, form the no-frills low end market, where they can't make a large profit margin (and likely with a lot of more competitors coming through). Guess Dell didn't fancy taking on the higher end smartphones then?