Dell says China 'bright spot' amid tech downturn

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HONG KONG -PC maker Dell Inc. said China was a "bright spot" amid the computer industry's slump, with the country's massive stimulus spending helping to boost sales in the first six months of the year.

All of Dell's businesses saw "relatively significant" growth in the first half over the same period last year, a company president said Wednesday. Compared with other countries, China's investment in technology was robust.

"China is kind of the bright spot," Steve Schuckenbrock, president of Dell's unit focusing on large companies, told reporters in Hong Kong. "Overall, the health of the investment in their strategies exceeds the rest of the world."

Schuckenbrock said it was hard to estimate how much China's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) spending package, announced late last year, was a factor, though Dell's consumer business had benefited from the government stimulus.

As with its rivals, Dell has struggled amid slackening demand for personal computers and weak corporate technology spending over the last year.

The company's second-quarter profit dived 23 percent as the personal-computer industry's downturn dragged on this summer. The company has yet to announce third-quarter results.

Round Rock, Texas-based, Dell was unseated as the world's No. 2 computer maker by Taiwan's Acer Inc. in the third quarter.

2009-10-21 06:39:15