Dell mulling smartphone launch in India by year end

Bangalore: Dell is planning the launch of its smartphones at a crucial time for the Indian market. It is expected to release at the end of 2010, when the significance of smartphones will enhance due to the start of 3G services in the country. After China, Dell is looking at the fastest growing cellular market in the world that is India, to boost the sale of its upcoming smartphones. Steve Felice, President of Dell's Small and Medium Business Division, was quoted saying that the company will launch a smartphone in India later this year. He also added that Dells' Chinese lineup would be expanded with the addition of one more smartphone. In all likelihood, it is anticipated that Dell will kick off with the Mini 3i Smartphone, which is already released in the Chinese market, for the Indian shores as well. With the basic smartphones' features and a 3 megapixel camera, built-in GPS and up to 32GB expandable memory, it can give a decent start to Dell in India. The move from Dell comes in when stiff contender HP bought over assets of Palm Inc, thus putting pressure on the former. Of late, a drift of primary computer manufacturers toward phones is observed, that indicates people's preference for small form factor devices. In fact, other original equipment manufacturers like Acer and ASUS are dabbling with phones too. Currently the leading players of smartphones in the Indian market are Nokia, Blackberry, HTC and Samsung. With the existing players offering designs and features like world-class corporate email support, great office productivity tools, fine experiences in music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games and business; Dell faces an uphill task of trying and matching up to these standards, that the Indian consumer is already used to. Further, what makes situations worse for Dell is the extensive availability of cheap handsets that look like smartphones and ape the functionalities and design of their much more pricey counterparts. The onus increases on Dell to market their product aggressively and suitably pricing it so as to create a favorable image on its smartphones' debut in the country.