US personal computer maker Dell Inc. is entering the smart phone market for the first time through a cooperation deal with China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest mobile handset maker by subscribers.
China Mobile's online store called Mobile Market ‘Mmarket’, launched Monday, will be offering music, games, videos and other entertainment programs for download to mobile phones. It serves to link handset vendors and application developers to China Mobile's users.
The Mobile Market is specially planned to attract more users to its newly launched 3G mobile service.
Mobile Market supports 10 handset models, including devices from Nokia Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc., HTC Corp.'s Dopod and Dell brands
According to China Mobile spokeswoman Rainie Lei, Dell's new handset, known as the mini3i, will support applications from China Mobile's online store.
Suffering from stiff competition and pricing pressure, major personal-computer makers, have been turning their attention to a new market for growth. PC makers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard Co., Taiwan's Acer Inc. and Asustek Computer Inc., have launched handsets in an effort to diversify their product offerings and launch devices that fetch higher margins.
In this scenario, a site channeling 480 million subscribers into a single mobile app and content store would seem like one of the world's most lucrative properties.
There are a lot of eyes focused on China Mobile right now as it gets ready to launch its Mobile Market venture. The store's site is sort of live now, though it appears to be in a pre-release testing phase with broken links all over the place; the carrier officially says that the service will be available in September, so we'd look to that date before the full force of half a billion individuals gets unleashed on the site!!!
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