RiTeng was also found to be responsible for noise pollution and other environmental infractions, and as a result environmental authorities have shut down some aspects of its production in addition to fining the company.

Readers with a sharp memory may recall the name RiTeng from back in 2011, when an explosion at the company injured 57 workers during a trial production run of Apple’s iPad 2. It’s clear that a few years later, RiTeng hasn’t quite worked out the kinks, and the promise on its website to provide “world-class green [environmentally friendly] products” hasn’t exactly been fulfilled yet.

It’s not clear whether the partial shutdown will affect production of any of the devices RiTeng provides supplies for, but the spill comes at a particularly bad time for the company in terms of PR, as Sina Weibo is currently in the midst of a high-profile clean rivers campaign.

(via Xinhua, image via Engadget)

Dell recently announced that it’s quitting Android – but that leaves China’s Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) facing the prospect of losing its most high-profile smartphone partner for its own mobile OS.

The Dell Streak Pro D43 (pictured) running Baidu’s cloud-oriented, Android-based mobile OS [1] launched almost exactly a year ago as Baidu’s first-ever smartphone vehicle. At the time we described it as a major partnership that marks the Chinese search engine giant’s biggest move into mobile. But today, a Baidu representative declined to comment on whether Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) is still a hardware partner in the light of the US gadget-maker’s recent announcement.

Baidu also cannot reveal sales figures for its Baidu Cloud OS phones, so it’s hard to see how crucial Dell is to its mobile strategy, where it’s expecting three times more revenue this year. But from sources in China’s smartphone industry we hear that the other two hardware partners for Baidu Cloud phones, China’s Changhong and TCL, are actually generating a lot more sales for their budget handsets, as opposed to the more premium-priced Dell Streak Pro D43. If true, it would seem that a global brand-name is not such a crucial factor in smartphone sales in the country.

Dell had been targeting China for its Android phones in 2011, but it seemed the traction was never there, with consumers who bought high-end Android devices instead opting for large-screen Samsung or Huawei smartphones instead. But all is not lost, as Dell is still China’s third-most loved PC maker.

As for Baidu, it still has other smartphone market options outside of its Baidu Cloud OS, as seen with the launch earlier this month of the newest Lenovo LePhone, which even features some clever voice unlocking tech pioneered by Baidu.

Lenovo jumped to take 14.9 percent of the market for Q1 2012, way up from the 9.7 percent that it held in the same period one year before (see chart below). The report notes that consumer buying was actually down three percent on the previous quarter, and Lenovo’s leap was largely due to a large contract with the Tamil Nadu government for 912,000 laptops, which was won by Lenovo, HCL, and Acer.

Following Lenovo in second spot was Dell, which dropped from the top position the year before. It now holds 14.0 percent of the market, just ahead of HP which has 13.7. Acer and HCL round out the top five with 11.8 and 5.8 percent respectively.

Of course HP is still the global leader in PC shipments, but Lenovo is expected to steal that crown during the second or third quarter of this year. HP, as you have likely heard by now, is planning to cut 27,000 jobs by 2014 in an effort to turn around the company.

*Disclosure: I’m a former HP employee (see our ethics policy), as well as a former Thinkpad owner.

Download image version of chart

Probably worthy of a better marketing campaign

We were recently contacted by someone working on behalf of Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), pointing out a recent campaign the company ran in Singapore, called the Dell XPS Ultrabook Challenge. You can check out the video for yourself below, but to make a long story short, participants in Singapore choose their favorite Ultrabook out of a possible five. The result, says Dell, is that 55 percent of the 1,301 participants chose the XPS.

Nonetheless, I think this video is crappy on so many levels that it doesn’t really do anyone any good, including Dell. And consumers.

One of my first questions to the representative was if he could tell me what were the competing models [1], but the company chose to not disclose that. I’m told:

The laptops weren’t powered up, the test was conducted solely on aesthetics. This bit is also included in the video’s written description, so full disclosure is there for viewers.

I didn’t bother reading the fine print on my first viewing, so the fact that they were not powered on was news to me. But obviously there are a number of things wrong with this when it comes to comparing. You can’t actually test the Ultrabook, but rather you can just feel it up a little [2]. It’s sort of like a Pepsi challenge, without being allowed to actually taste the Pepsi. Similarly, my esteemed colleague Charlie notes the irony that in a video about the pure aesthetics of the device we never really see a good clear shot of the whole thing.

But perhaps the biggest reason that I’m not a fan of this video (aside from the painfully awkward “I choose Dell” testimonials at the end) is the fact that Ultrabooks are high-end products. And Dell’s survey sample is not representative of the high-end consumer. I’d put more faith in this kind of test if it were conducted among a group of gamers, or a media production class for example.

I’m still considering upgrading my 2007 13" Macbook, and so far the likely candidate would be a Lenovo Thinkpad [3]. But I could could happily rock a Dell, particularly an XPS – as long as I can throw Linux on it.

The video is below. Give it a look for yourself and let me know what you think.

Disclosure: I am a former HP employee. Currently the computers I own are a 2010 iMac, an ageing 2007 13" Macbook which is still running well, and a tiny Dell Mini 10.

Mobage on the Baidu Yi store

Back in December we told you about Dell’s Streak Pro D43, the first smartphone to run Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) Android-based Yi OS. And for anyone who owns a Baidu Yi smartphone, things just got a little more fun. Japanese mobile gaming company DeNA (TYO:2432), via its Chinese subsidiary, has partnered with Baidu to bring its Mobage gaming platform to the Chinese operating system.

This means the Baidu’s app store (called the Yi Store) will have a special section devoted to Mobage gaming. This is just the latest effort from DeNA to push its gaming platform to the Chinese market. Since it launched Mobage in China back in July of 2011, there has been lots of news regarding the company’s Mobage partners in the country.

A couple of months back we heard that the DeNA had teamed up with Alibaba Cloud Computing to bring Mobage to Aliyun smartphones in China. Not stopping there, the company announced last month that it was forming a joint venture with online game developer NetDragon, in an effort to develop and operate social games for China.

Gartner has released its estimates of worldwide PC shipments for the fourth quarter of 2011, and Chinese maker Lenovo (HKG:0992) posted the best growth among the top vendors, with 23 percent more shipments in the quarter.

With 14 percent market share, Lenovo still ranks second in global PC shipments just behind market leader HP (NYSE:HPQ), having leapfrogged Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) earlier in the year. HP retains a 16 percent market share despite a 16 percent shipment decline on the previous year. The afore-mentioned Dell sits behind in the third spot with 12.6 percent market share. We don’t hear too many headlines from Dell these days, but the company put up an impressive 30 percent growth in Asia according to the report.

Taiwanese vendors Acer (TPE:2353) and Asus (TPE:2357) rounded out the top five with 10.7 and 6.8 percent market share respectively. Although in terms of growth, the companies went in opposite directions with Asus’s shipments growing by over 20 percent, and Acer’s declining by 18.4.

Globally, PC shipments were down by 1.4 percent, but here in Asia there was an 8.5 percent increase on the same period last year.

This morning in Beijing, the American company Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) is unveiling a smartphone that runs Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) newly-launched Yi OS. It’s a major partnership that marks the Chinese search engine giant’s biggest move into mobile.

The Dell Streak Pro D43 (pictured above and below) has a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen that’s high-definition (aka: qHD at 960 by 540 pixels), an 8-megapixel main camera plus a 1.3-megapixel one for video-chatting, and has WCDMA 3G that’ll run on China Unicom (NYSE:CHU; HKG:0762), the same network that carries the iPhone in the country.

The Baidu Yi OS is based on Google’s mobile system, Android, which is permitted under the software’s open-source structure. And so it features core Android features such as voice commands in Chinese, onto which Baidu has built an ecosystem of its own – with apps such as Ting for its streaming music service, Yue for e-books, and Baidu’s own Maps app as well.

Dell's new smartphone for China, running Baidu's Yi OS. (Source of both images: Sina Tech news)

There’s no word yet on price, but judging by the specs, Dell and Baidu are, with its first-ever Yi handset, aiming for the top-end of the market that’s occupied by the iPhone and the likes of Motorola’s (NYSE:MMI) new customized-for-China MT917 RAZR, which runs standard Android 2.3.

The pictures above, sourced from Sina Tech, show a familiar Android interface mixing app icons with widgets. There seems to be a very iPhone-esque folder icon on there too, which is a sign that Baidu has improved the poor folder system in Android 2.3, which is what the Yi OS is based on.

In due course, Baidu will also release an open API for Yi, with developer tools to allow more deep integration of apps with Baidu services. But for now, any app made for Google’s Android platform will also work on Yi, giving Dell and Baidu the benefit of lots of apps and popular games, such as Angry Birds, ready to play on the new Dell-Yi device.

The press conference is still ongoing, and we’ll update if more juicy details are revealed.

The Dell Streak 5 - a contender for running Baidu Yi.

Damn, this is shaping up to be a competitive month for smartphones in China! First we had Xiaomi’s M1, which will finally be available to everyone on December 18. Then there were the rumors that we might see the iPhone 4s finally hit the China market this month. And now rumors are spreading that Dell may be offering a new handset of its own this month running Baidu’s new Android-based Baidu Yi mobile OS.

Baidu Yi was launched back in early fall but we have yet to see a handset paired with the OS. Shortly after its launch, rumors were swirling that Dell would offer the first Baidu Yi handset in November, and while it obviously missed that date, Seeking Alpha analyst Jiang Zhang thinks we can expect a Dell phone this month, and we suspect he’s right.

According to Jiang, the Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) handset should go for around 3,000 RMB ($470), which puts it in an interesting market space — cheaper than almost every major smartphone, but not quite as cheap as the upstart Xiaomi M1, which retails for 2,000 RMB ($312). But the real advantage of the device will be the Baidu Yi OS, which integrates with a variety of Baidu services millions of Chinese net users are already familiar with and using on a daily basis. That could be a huge draw, and it’s something no one else can offer.

When contacted, Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) had no comment on the rumor that a Baidu Yi handset might hit the market this month. Nevertheless, we strongly suspect you’ll see a Dell handset this month, and in the year to come presumably other handset manufacturers will also begin offering their own handsets running Baidu Yi natively.

We’re looking forward to seeing what Dell’s come up with, and how Chinese mobile users respond to Baidu’s new mobile OS. We’ll be keeping an eye on this story and will be sure to let you know when the handset is officially announced.

New numbers from research firm Gartner on the PC market in India say that there’s an increase of nearly 13 percent in the units shipped for the third quarter over the same period a year ago. What’s interesting about this report is that PC growth in India appears to be almost 10 percent higher than the worldwide market growth, which Gartner says is just 3.2 percent for the same period.

It’s also interesting to note that with 15 percent market share Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) edges out HP (NYSE:HPQ) as the dominant PC maker in India, while the company has dropped to third spot behind HP and Lenovo (HKG:0992) globally. [1] But while Dell holds a lead, its share has falled one percent from the previous quarter, while HP’s rose almost two percent. As for Lenovo, it was up 1.7 percent on Q2.

According to Vishal Tripathi, principal researcher at Gartner, the growth comes due to the success of the mobile PC market, up 29 percent in the quarter. He adds:

A number of festivals helped drive demand in the consumer market in India. The third quarter was the best quarter in the history of the Indian PC industry as overall PC shipments crossed 3.15 million units for the first time. The consumer segment accounted for 55 percent of PC shipments.

Looking at the market share breakdown, one might be surprised to see HCL accounting for 5.6 percent. This local technology company is based in Noida, India and according to the report was the only vendor to see a decline in shipments in the third quarter.

[Photo: Dell on Flickr]

Photo: hktdc.com

Last month we looked at second quarter figures from iSuppli that indicated Lenovo (HKG:0992) had jumped to third spot in the personal computer market. And now today, research firm Gartner estimates that the company’s third quarter shipments are enough to vault it past Dell into the number two spot.

According to Gartner’s preliminary worldwide shipment estimates (which do not include tablets), Hewlett Packard remains the top PC vendor with 17.7 percent market share (up from 17.3 last year). This despite recent news that it might be looking to spin off its PC business, although today The Wall Street Journal says HP is rethinking that plan.

Lenovo’s strong showing was helped by its tie-up with Japan’s NEC. The Chinese PC maker took 13.5 percent of the market, up from 11.1 percent last year. This was enough to overtake Dell, which sits in third spot with 11.6 percent. Taiwanese vendors Acer and Asus round out the global top five at 10.6 percent and 6.2 percent respectively.

Looking at the big picture in Asia, Gartner says that PC shipments grew six percent over last year, reaching 31.8 million units shipped in the third quarter of 2011. In Japan, shipments were up three percent, with 3.9 million units moved.

I choo-choo-choose you, Central China! (Image rights, and sincere apologies, to The Simpsons/Matt Groenig)

Taiwanese computer maker Acer (TPE:2353) is leading where US rival Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) hopes to follow – by manufacturing PCs and notebooks in inland China, and then transporting them by rail to Europe.

Acer, the world’s number four PC vendor – who’s having a rough year with falling sales – is already making up to 40 percent of its notebooks in central China’s Chongqing municipality. And for the first time, Digitimes reports, Acer is now ready to ship 40,000 units from there to Duisburg, Germany, by rail.

Dell has a base in neighboring Chengdu province. I believe it has two operations centres in the West Chengdu High-Tech Park as well as a new manufacturing base there. Like many PC vendors whose products are made in China, most are still made in coastal regions. Dell’s primary China plant is in Xiamen. With a greater output from its central China plant in due course, Dell looks set to use the same rail route if it works well.

The rail freight journey from central China to Europe takes only 13 days, which is half the time it often takes by sea. But two challenge remain: the wildly differing temperatures and humidity across the length of the route, which risks damaging electronic goods; and the higher cost of rail, compared to air or sea freight. But the cost of using this rail line will likely fall as more frequent services are added. [Update: Engadget's Richard Lai is kind enough to point out that this trade rail route to western Europe opened in October last year, as reported by Xinhua].

A new rail line through Central China's Sichuan province - opening it up to rail freight to Europe. (Image source: Xinhua)

Although not high-speed (see the picture above), it’s the kind of reliable and far-reaching rail infrastructure that rival emerging economies lack. That – along with cheaper labour and land than in China’s conventional manufacturing regions around Shenzhen and Shanghai – is a big part of the attraction of moving inland.

Taiwanese OEMs have been quick to follow the government lead – in the official Western-China Development Strategy – to new hi-tech zones in Chongqing and Chengdu. Foxconn and Quanta both expanded into inner China in early 2010. Dell started to set-up there pretty early as well, and its operations in the province are opening throughout 2011.

The Dell Streak 5 - a contender for running Baidu Yi.

[Update - After reaching out to Baidu, it’s clear this is a very general statement made by Dell about working with Baidu on various other projects - it’s not a specific deal to put the Yi platform on Dell devices. Official partner announcements will be made at a later date; nothing is official yet. I’ve updated the post to reflect this.]

After Baidu’s unveiling of its Android-based mobile OS last Friday, we have an official announcement word from Dell that it’s teaming up with China’s biggest search engine for mobiles and tablets – but that doesn’t necessarily mean it pertains to Baidu Yi. Nonethless, Dell might well be the first official partner for Yi. The Chinese press is reporting a rumor that November is the earliest likely date for Baidu Yi to appear on devices in the shops.

Quoted by Reuters today, a Dell spokeswoman says:

We have a partnership with Baidu and you know we have the Streak 5 tablet, so the partnership will be in that space.

If Dell turns out to be a Yi partner, it’s likely it’ll also bring the new Android-based platform to its own smartphones as well. Dell has been particularly active in China with its phones since 2009 when it launched the Mini 3i, which was very much designed for business-oriented Chinese smartphone buyers. The Dell Streak 5 (pictured at the top, running regular Android 2.2) is one of many such devices that could have Baidu Yi easily slipped inside of them.

A screenshot from a Baidu video of its new mobile OS. Pictured is the SMS app in use.

Looking beyond November, it’s probable that other partners will run with Yi – possibly HTC. Motorola is theoretically possible – although it has been bought by Google, there’d surely be no conflict in it running a licensed fork of Android, even if it is made by a search engine market rival.

Until then, let us know what you think of Dell’s phones in the comments. Would they make a good vehicle for Yi, or would a cooler brand like HTC have a bigger impact?

While we’re not certain what Dell thinks Peju means, in the word is slang for ‘sperm’ in Bahasa Indonesia. Obviously, many Indonesian Twitter users know this and enjoyed a good chuckle at Dell’s expense, and thus the unfortunate moniker drove the Peju to viral status.

Local social media metrics company SalingSaling recorded that the Dell Peju conversation started on Monday morning and reached its peak around 4pm, with about 900 tweets making it a trending topic. Most of them were making fun of the name by saying things like:

• “dell peju hmm.. seems we will need a lot of tissue”
• “i think there’s something weird with the name”
• “BB: Ping!!! MSN: Nudge!!! Yahoo: Buzz!!! Dell Peju: Splash!!!”

Dell Peju trending on July 11 in Indonesia (Salingsaling)

We must admit that Dell’s new Peju, if it can make the swim to Indonesia, will certainly have a challenge ahead, as the local tablet market is already plenty crowded. But given this unfortunate naming blunder, the company might just need to millions of units all at once, if it hopes that even one lucky Peju might find a home there.

Here are the reported specs, according to recently leaked documents from Dell Peju Insider. Check out the video below for some of the images.

An "artist's" interpretation

• Intel i5 processor
• front and rear cameras
• 4 GB RAM
• 64 or 120 GB solid state drive
• Windows 7 Pro (Windows 8 compatible)
• WiFi, 3G, 4G
• Dimensions: 10.8 x 6.7 x 0.63 inches

Source: TechEye, Engadget

By interviewing dozens of workers at each of the ten factories – spread across China’s two main industrial hubs in Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces – CLW got a clear picture of improving or deteriorating conditions, as well as seeing patterns of abuses and dishonorable behavior by management that’s designed to wring every last cent from workers.

There’s such a litany of penny-pinching, conniving, greedy, amoral inhumanity on display at these factories – at many, for example, a worker being just one minute late for a shift will result in them being docked a half day of wages, in addition to a further monetary fine – that the minutiae of corporate callousness takes on a systematic and almost torture-like relentlessness.

Some of the major name brands whose products are manufactured at these 10 factories.

Most depressingly, there’s no area of major improvement over the arc of the past few years, not even with tightened labor laws in China, or supposed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaigns by Microsoft or Apple. Indeed, the five main types of violations according to CLW – “overtime, wages, labor intensity, contracts, and discrimination” – are all in grim evidence in this year’s report.

As someone who has followed these reports over recent years, it’s alarming to see specific violations crop up again this year, such as:

Forcing workers to work overtime; arbitrarily fining workers; discriminating against workers on the basis of their gender, age, and status as Hepatitis B carriers; adopting methods of production that required high levels of labor intensity; and, finally, using militant management strategies.

The worst plant proved to be that of Hongkai Electronics, based in Dongguan in southern China, which makes precision instruments and various cables for IBM, ASUS, Konka, Apple, HP and some others. Almost all of its CLW scores (as seen in the interactive graph, below) were so low that they approached being the worst in the industry. CLW observed that “monthly overtime exceeds 142 hours,” there were no sick days offered, workers often had no time to use the bathroom during a shift, the workshops were filthy and not regularly cleaned, the lighting was insufficient, and… Well, it goes on and on. If you’re having a bad day at work, you can now be thankful you don’t work at Hongkai.

One tiny sliver of good news is that Foxconn – which manufactures a great deal of Apple’s products, and has been under the most global scrutiny in recent years – has shown improvements, and one of its two investigated plants emerged from this report as the top facility. But CRW warns:

When Foxconn came under intense international scrutiny, its competitors, Flextronics, BYD, ASUS, Quanta and other supplier factories, benefited. If under public scrutiny and criticism, Foxconn improves the labor conditions inside its factories, but brand companies are unwilling to increase their order prices, these labor reforms will not be sustainable. In this situation, buyer brand companies will inconspicuously place their orders with other factories that are not under such intense public scrutiny.

CLW also graded the ten OEM firms according to various working condition factors, with a score of 1 representing the worst such conditions in the industry, and a score of 5 being the best. Instead of showing you their table, we made this interactive graph instead:

The entire 123-page PDF from China Labor Watch is embedded here. I’d recommend clicking the fullscreen icon to read it; or download the PDF at the source link below:

[Source: China Labor Watch]

Blibli has a gorgeous user interface that makes the online shopping experience more enjoyable. There are some well-known merchants selling their wares on BliBli already, such as Harley-Davidson, Philips, and Dell Stores. In total there are 56 merchants which have signed merchandising agreements with Blibli.com.

There are two things that make Blibli different from other e-commerce sites:

The first is personalized shopping and sharing experience. Blibli provides a My Blibli feature that allows users to customize their shopping experience. Users can choose their favorite product categories and stores, make their own wishlists, monitor their shopping histories, and manage their shopping points and special coupons.

The second is Blibli’s Expert team that provides useful shopping information for consumers. Currently the Experts team consists of five characters that represent a certain category of shoppers:  Mr. Gentleman, Miss Stylish, Miss Belle, Mr. Gadget and Mrs. Happymom. Three more will be coming soon.

Besides writing articles on the Blibli.com website, they would also publish some meaningful information tidbits on their Twitter accounts. As far as I can see, this could be a good marketing strategy since each character provides unique information based on their profiles and taste.

For payment, Blibli supports KlikBCA and Internet Banking Mandiri, which are two popular Internet banking services in Indonesia. It also supports payment via credit card and virtual account.

Realizing the value of that market, Lenovo has set a target that 25% of its overseas sales will be from Indonesia. The Chinese maker has already launched four low priced mobile phones, and will continue its push launching five devices this month, all priced below 1 million IDR (US$ 115). Among these will be an Android-based touch smartphone called LePhone. Lenovo’s hybrid tablet, LePad, is a 10-inch tablet that can run either both Android OS or Windows.

Acer, well known for its notebook and netbook products here in Indonesia, has also turned its focus to tablets. The company launched the Iconia Touchbook last week, which features as i5 processor, two 14-inches screens made of Gorilla Glass, multi-touch, and movement reflect. Acer Iconia sports a new ‘ring’ interface on top of a Windows 7 OS. A user can choose between the items on the ring with a swipe of the finger. Iconia Touchbook can be purchased for around US$1,200.

While Dell is making a strong push in China, they are also rumored to launch the Dell Streak in Indonesia around April or May. Running Android 2.2, and featuring an NVIDIA 2 mobile processor, it will be tagged with at around $500 to $700 (US) price point. With a 7-inch WVGA screen, Dell Streak can access email, IM, and video conferencing. There will be a 3G version too, so users can text and send MMS on the go. The device is equipped with a 5 megapixel front-facing camera and 1.3 megapixel camera around back.

Huawei, another Chinese IT brand, will challenge for the tablet crown along with the Huawei Ideos S7. Running on Android 2.1, with a 7-inches WVGA screen, it has HD video and Hi-speed web browsing. Priced at US$350, Huawei is targeting a lower market. By working together with XL Axiata (one of the biggest local telcos), Huawei hopes to make the task of marketing this tablet a little easier.

For me, Apple with iPad and iPad 2 will still hold the upper hand because of its branding and wide selection of apps. While Apple is the clear favorite in the race, it still remains to be seen who will take the lower section of the market among the Android tablets.

Image Credit

Lenovo, the current market leader in China owns about 27 percent market share while runner up Dell owns about 9 percent. The gap might be huge but Dell is determined to close it. “This is not for the faint-hearted, and it’s only the first inning of a very long game,” said Amit Midha.

Dell is on track to spend $25 billion in China this year and is likely to spend $250 billion over the next 10 years if it continues spending at the current rate.

Besides laptops and desktops, Dell is also looking to expand its tablet market in China. Most of its sales are acquired through website and telephone orders. Corporate sales would also be Dell’s focus, particularly in Beijing and Shanghai.

“China, all of a sudden, is starting to become the centrepiece for us,” Midha said at the summit, held at the Reuters office in Beijing.

“If you think about it, be it design, manufacturing, procurement, sales, service support, there’s more and more that can be done more effectively in China than in many other places.”

There seems to be a lot of buzz on China recently. Groupon, Google and Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg is currently in China) have all made their moves or at least indicated their interest in China. Interestingly, the companies mentioned are all U.S based companies. It could be an indication that 2011 is a year we witness many bridges formed between the East and the West.

Currently, the United States is the largest PC market in terms of shipment figures. China is ranked second but is poised to overtake United States within the next decade. Shipments are expected to rise 14 percent to 74 million units next year, outperforming the other markets with single digit growth rate.

“This is going to be battle royale,” Amit Midha, head of Dell’s China operations, told the Reuters China Investment Summit. “This is not for the faint-hearted, and it’s only the first inning of a very long game.”

Every business wants a piece of China

Even after the China-Google saga (which left Google in an awkward position in China) Google still considers China as the heart of the Internet. Google may not be able to challenge in search but advertising and maps are some areas where Google still has a role to play.

Groupon also has one eye on China. The social group buying website has acquired several copycat sites in Asia and is looking to do the same in China. On the other hand, companies like Facebook and Twitter, which are banned in China, are facing uphill battle to enter this lucrative market. The result is the rise of Facebook and Twitter clones in China, which has further heightened the barrier of entry.

It was said that the average daily mentions of Dell on Twitter have a greater reach than the top 12 daily newspapers in the United States combined.

Based in Dell’s Austin headquarters, The Listening Command Center will be an integral part of the @Dellcares customer care and support team.

Relevant data and information are tracked, listened and then shared with the appropriate teams within Dell to better improve its services. Dell has trained over 5,000 employees in social media with listening and engaging as part of their jobs. It is rare to find a brand that is this serious about social media.

The value of social media starts from listening and Dell clearly understands that. In a previous post, we shared what Gary Vaynerchuk, host of Wine Library TV, thinks about social media. His social media success starts from listening too.

“I think the way to win in social media or have success is to not talk but to listen,“ said Gary.

“I’m in the 95 percentile of just at replying and responding. (…) It’s the listening part that made sense to me. I mean, I built my brand by using Summize.com, which eventually got bought by Twitter and is the back of their search engine. Nobody knew who I was. I wasn’t going to be Robert Parker, “Wine Spectator,” and have those platforms. So, all I did was search Chardonnay and Merlot and Pinot Grigio, and I just started answering questions. I became useful.”

What Vaynerchuk did on the Twitter search engine is perhaps the simplest form of social media tracking, listening and engaging. But it works great for him. With far more sophisticated tools and a dedicated social media team, I’m excited to see how Dell’s Social Media Listening Center will help evolve and improve its services.

[Via Mashable, Image courtesy of Dell]

Just a week ago, Dell officially launched Dell Swarm, an online social group-buying site where consumers can gather to buy gadgets in bulk to enjoy big savings. It appears that it is currently only available in Australia, though it was tested before in Singapore and Canada but they are still fixing the bugs. Similar to Groupon, Dell is the first company (I believe) to lead this campaign on its own. Very clever business idea indeed – and if this picks up, we can expect more companies to follow suit.

(Personally love the idea of countdown timer! Brings so much excitement, really.)

How it works:

You can join a current swarm or suggest a new swarm on the site. You have 48 hours to get response – once enough people have signed up, the swarm will go live and you can confirm your order. Once the order has been placed, you’ll receive a unique code to be able to customise and complete your purchase.

To try and increase the size of the order and therefore the savings, you can easily share information about the swarm with friends using social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail. The more people involved, the better the bargain the swarm receives.

Items on sale through Dell Swarm include digital cameras, electronics and software accessories, TVs, etc. Not only limited to Dell products but Cisco, Belkin, Kogan, Canon, Microsoft and other big players have also gotten in on the deal, and Dell expects to expand to more vendors in the future.

The credit goes to its versatility in any circumstances. It is currently being used for social, business, news and political purposes.

Not too long ago, a study revealed that 80% of the people use Twitter for Business. But who are the cream of the crop?

We define success not by the number of followers (although it is tempting to do so) but the amount of interaction and engagement it has with its followers. So here are 10 businesses, which we consider successful on Twitter!

1. Whole Foods

10. Zazzle

What’s on the page?
Zazzle is an online product customization marketplace. Naturally, Twitter is used as one of its tools to create presence. @Zazzle has active communication with its customers and also offers technical help for troubled clients. An extremely friendly business to follow.

One Cool Tweet

In a sentence?

Customize your tee and tweet @Zazzle!

Check out our 10 Successful Facebook Business Page.

After studying the top most engaging brands on the web and going in depth to see how Starbucks and Dell did it, I have gathered some tried and tested best practices businesses can apply into their own social media efforts.

This is also an extension from my article, “How to: Be a Social Media Winner”. Most people teach theories but I prefer to show theories being implemented by real successful companies. So here goes!

Be Relevant to Your Different Markets

Different people from different geographical location and language consume information differently. The problem with many marketers and PR representatives is that their message is too generalized. Don’t create the same message to be used across all markets no matter if they are from China or Chile. Get out of oblivion and modify your messages to make sure it is relevant to and understood by the market you are communicating to.

Thomson Reuters made sure that it is a source of relevant intelligent information to specific markets through Twitter.

Build Trust and Credibility

One reason why Dell decided to teach social media to small businesses is to gain trust and credibility from consumers. By portraying as an expert in the field, it shows how established and reliable Dell as a brand is in the social media world.

Listen, Admit, Change and Learn

Admitting to mistakes and initiating a change for the better don’t mean that your business is a failure. It means you are willing to hear your consumers’ voice and improve even when you are doing well. Wholefoods integrated all that into its Twitter, which was set up as their online customer service platform.

Be Fun and Visual

Visuals play a big part in the user experience you provide. They engage and help you capture consumers’ attention for a longer time.

Who knew a Facebook page could be that fun and engaging? I was impressed with Mcdonald’s page when I first entered. With the cool use of flash, Mcdonald’s made static Facebook pages look shabby.

Carl’s Jr. also conveyed itself to be fun and happening through its YouTube channel. I really wouldn’t mind spending more time in it!

Be Sincere in Benefiting Consumers

Don’t do everything for your own interests. Show your consumers that you care and the products you sell are genuinely there to help improve their lives. Nike provides tips, videos and Q&A through its blog to help consumers go about exercise the right way.

Transparency

As mentioned earlier, building trust and credibility is important. Being transparent in your operations and undertakings is crucial to shaping trust. Starbucks welcome ideas from consumers through MyStarbucksIdea.com but how would consumers know if you are really taking them seriously? Be transparent. Through its site, consumers can see what others are saying, how their ideas are rated and what’s more; they are also allowed to see the status of ideas: Under review, reviewed, coming soon and launched. Starbucks also show how exactly it conducts its Corporate Social Responsibility activities. Let your consumers know everything they need for them to place trust on you.

Consistency

To keep your brand image alive, you got to be consistent across all media platforms. Capture the essence of your brand so consumers can find familiarity and authenticity wherever they have contact with your brand.

Other Great Business Resource

1. How To: Be a Social Media Winner

2. Starbucks Engages Through the Web

3. Dell out of Hell: Now a Social Media Winner

4. 10 Successful Facebook Business Pages

5, Five Great Social Media Marketing Campaigns

6. Reason Why Social Media is able to Help your Business

Social Media

Why is this so?

This is because companies don’t wholly own their brand anymore.

Consumers own most part of it. Back in the old days, we could only share our experience and thoughts verbally; either face to face or through the phone. Now we have the power to generate our own content and have influence over the people who view it. Our content about a brand affects others’ perception of it. With a tweet or a status update, hundreds will see our views instantly. Not forgetting that an “interesting” content would spread like wildfire.

A company that does not know how to effectively turn this revolution to its advantage would eventually suffer.

2 years have passed since Dell Hell dwelt in the social media world. Back then, Dell’s customer service was heavily criticized via Social Media. Be that as it was, with an open mind and willingness to change for the better, it has raised from the dead to become #2 in web engagement and a true social media winner.

Twitter

Most of us would have heard of @Delloutlet‘s success – making $3 million revenue over the course of 2 years through Twitter alone! Managed by @StefanieatDell, @Delloutlet tweets about existing promotions and answers customers’ queries. But Dell didn’t just stop there. It moved on to ride the Twitter wave, creating various Twitter profiles to target different customer segments.

An unfocused scatter approach you might call it, but Dell is allocating manpower to each existing Twitter profile, showing how this PC maker giant values Twitter. As a Twitter user, you would realize how quickly information could be disseminated and received. Dell understands the value of connecting with its consumers; and managing crisis, answering queries, listening to how consumers promote its brand and discovering their wants became so much easier with social media. Twitter has proven to be a great choice for Dell.

Facebook

It is no easy task crawling out of hell alive but Dell has definitely learned a lot from this dreadful experience. To prevent other businesses from reliving the same mistake, Dell has devoted a page to teach small businesses about social media. Although this page has no direct linkage with its core business, it serves as a powerful subtle marketing tool for Dell.

And of course, Dell also has its own fan page.

IdeaStorm

IdeaStorm was created by Dell to allow everyone to share their ideas, collaborate with other users and see their brainchild become a reality. It follows the Reddit concept and hence, works like it. As a member, you can promote, demote and comment on the ideas. There’s perfect transparency as the status of an idea is clearly displayed so that everyone is aware of its progress.

The reason for IdeaStorm is obvious – Customers know what they want best. Such a platform allows lead users to better voice their opinions and echo good ideas that Dell could have missed out.

With Starbucks and Dell as leading examples of user generated idea input, could focus groups be irrelevant one day?

Conclusion

For a huge company like Dell, it is not easy to admit (especially when pride is at stake), listen, learn and change. Not forgetting that they teach as well. Because Dell is willing to do all that, it has become one of the most successful companies in the social media world.

Say bye to Dell Hell! Dell bounced back stronger, creating a better experience for its consumers. That is exactly what we, the consumers, want all companies to do.

Note: Check out how Starbucks does it

Wow. This Dell Facebook Page is dedicated to teaching small businesses how to use social media to their advantage.

From Dell Hell to the #2 brand in web engagement, Dell has surely come a long way to get out of the mess (created by no one other than its poor customer service back then). With all the experiences and struggles gone through by Dell, this giant PC maker certainly has the bullets to advocate what it takes to be successful in Social Media Marketing.

Even so, why is Dell teaching social media to businesses?

The reasons are definitely valid and simple:

1. Be a Social Media Winner

With Social Media Marketing on the rise, Dell positions itself as the leading example of a social media winner. It’s like reliving how Toyota established itself (with several books published) as having the most efficient manufacturing process, coined as the Toyota way. It quickly helps the consumers see the company as the expert in that particular field, catalyzing trust between the consumers and the brand.

2. Annoucement: We’re out of Hell

You know how much better we are in remembering negative experiences than positive ones. Yes, Dell has indeed escaped hell but as far as consumers who do not know, they are still in it.
With this resurrection, Dell represents a company that is willing to learn from its mistakes and able to capitalize the lessons learned. Teaching social media to businesses is probably one of the best way to beat the drums on how great Dell is right now.

3. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

“Create a community for small businesses to learn how to best use social media to grow their companies.”
A sign of goodwill is definitely part of the plan, not forgetting that businesses are also part of their target consumer group.

Can Social Media be used as a marketing tool?

Judging by the number of companies who have embarked on it, the answer seems to be a clear yes. In this post, we shall discover how 5 great companies have successfully leveraged on various Social Media tools to generate awareness.

They have provided many great pointers that you can learn and apply in your own business.

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1. New York Times

News broadcasting is no longer restricted to Newspapers and TV programs. With the rise of Web 2.0 technologies, Social Media has increasingly become a great channel to reach a greater mass of people. For news providers, they have to compete to be the fastest in reaching people. The idea is simple. When people hear from you first, they credit you for it when they write about things surrounding the news in their blogs, articles and network platforms. The best thing? They’d probably come to you for news the next time. Hence, Viral Marketing has proven to be even more vital in the news industry.

With continual effort, the use of Social Media has kept New York Times at the top of people’s mind; being a reliable source of breaking news.

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

2. Starbucks

Venturing into Social Media Marketing has helped Starbucks establish better communication with its consumers. Announcing news, introducing promotions and answering enquiries are now much easier via Social Media. Starbucks also updates what CEO Howard Schultz has been up to. Thanks to Facebook, we all know that he has been to Rwanda. It also sent a subtle message that Starbucks is providing the best coffee without sacrificing the welfare of the coffee farmers. The pictures gave real life proof that the partnership between Starbucks and Rwanda is real and definitely for the greater good.

Twitter

Facebook

3. Dell

Remember Dell Hell? You would never have imagined that Dell could turn the tables around through the use of Social Media.

Alright, maybe it is not totally because of Social Media. We should also give credit to its good customer service and willingness to improve through customer feedback.

Dell announced just last month that they made a whopping USD 3 million revenue purely through Twitter. This shows that its Social Media campaign has indeed helped it bounce back stronger. Dell is now one of the first few case studies illustrating that making millions through Twitter is possible.

Twitter

4. iCanHasCheezburger?

Besides using Twitter and Facebook, iCanHasCheezbuger uses Plurk to generate high traffic to its site. It proved that businesses can go further by not restricting themselves to using solely the more popular social media tools.

Plurk

Twitter

Facebook

5. Zappos

Zappos has employed a pretty interesting Twitter Strategy. Besides @Zappos, which features its CEO, Tony Hsieh, all its 400+ employees have their own Twitter account as well. There was only one purpose for this – to get all Zappos staff to communicate and engage its customers via Twitter. Not only that, they also have a leaderboard that lists all Zappos’ Tweeple, ranking them according to the number of followers they have. Staff are encouraged to work up the leaderboard and actively promote Zappos at the same time.

Unlike others, Zappos successfully put a face and personality into its Twitter profile. @Zappos tweets are mostly personal and not work related. This made it easier for Zappos to connect with more people. There is a reason why it is called SOCIAL Media.

Twitter

Charlene Li, Analyst from Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group has the answer. A study on brands’ social media engagement was conducted on the top 100 brands featured on BusinessWeek’s “Interbrand Best Global Brands 2008″ publication. This study spans across more than 10 social media sites such as Facebook, Wikis, Forum, Flickr and content distribution sites such as Facebook Connect and ShareThis.

Before we show you the top 10 brands, you might want to briefly understand how companies go about gaining engagement credits. Companies only receive credits if they are actively creating and promoting presence and consistent participation within the channel. On the other hand, partial credit is given if corporate presence is created by external parties (e.g. consumers, third party affiliates).

Engagement Profile

Each brand is classified under an Engagement Profile, according to the brand’s magnitude of presence and engagement. Those with high engagement and many channels (on the top right quadrant) are called mavens while those with one channel and low engagement (lower left quadrant) are named wallflowers. Interesting names!

Top 10 Engagement Score

And here it is! The top 10 most engaging brands; led by Starbucks® with a score of 127.

Bonus: Engagement Scores by Industry

These 100 companies are grouped into their respective industries to calculate the industry average engagement scores and channels. With that, the Media and Technology industries stood out with a score of 76.7 and 70.0 respectively.

Media Companies: Google, Yahoo, Thomson Reuters, MTV, Disney, GE
Technology Companies: Dell, Microsoft, SAP, Intel, Blackberry, Oracle, Cisco, HP, Samsung, IBM, Xerox, Motorola

Via Techcrunch