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India biz not affected by battery recall: Dell

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CIOL Bureau
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Pragati Simlote

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NEW DELHI: Dell India does not expect its decision to recall batteries, to affect its India business significantly.

Commenting on the impact in India of this recall, Dell India VP & GM Rajan Anandan said, “Indian share in the recalled batteries is miniscule. The whole process of replacing the batteries of Indian customers is expected to be completed in the next six weeks. In the last two weeks we have signed three large corporate deals which goes on to show that there has been no impact on the Indian marketplace of this incident.”

Dell had recently recalled 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries made by Sony Corp. unit Sony Energy Devices Corp., which Dell said could in rare cases produce smoke and catch fire. The recall of batteries in machines sold from April 2004 through last month spans Dell's notebook lines, including Latitude, Inspiron and Precision models. They ranged in price from $500 to $2,850. The recall involves 18 percent of Dell's 22 million notebook computers sold between April 2004 and July 2006.

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Dell VP for Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) Steve Felice said, “We have put together a proactive process to replace customer batteries. Infact, we have got a positive feedback from Indian customers about Dell’s response to the situation.”

He also dispelled rumors that Dell is planning to take the channel route. Felice said, “We have no intention of changing our direct approach. With the current model, we don’t have to undertake any inventory build up and are able to build products to specification. It also enables us to diagnose service issues faster and respond better. Because of this model our delivery performance is very reliable and consistent.”

As announced earlier, Dell is also looking at setting up a manufacturing facility in India. With the factory up and running the company would be further able to cut down the delivery time in India from 12 days currently to three - five days. Dell’s manufacturing unit would start with manufacturing desktops and then move on to servers. Overtime, all product lines would be manufactured out of this facility. Initially it would cater to the Indian market, but in future it could cater to the demand of neighboring countries.

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Felice said, “We are very close to taking the final decision as to where we would be setting up our manufacturing facility. As announced earlier, we plan to start manufacturing in India by the first half of 2007. We are in the process of final negotiations with state governments. While selecting the location, we are looking at issues like access to talent, logistics, infrastructure and the ability of that location to ensure that the company can meet customers’ expectations.”

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