Is Apple losing on Dell's advance in China?

“Dell To Spend $100B In China
By Jessica Mintz, AP Technology Writer
Manufacturing.Net - September 17, 2010

SEATTLE (AP -- Dell Inc. is making a $100 billion bet that China will remain one of the fastest-growing markets for personal computers over the next decade.

Dell said Thursday it plans to open a manufacturing, sales and service center in Chengdu in 2011 that could eventually employ more than 3,000 workers. The new operations center is a response to rapid growth in business in Western China, Dell said.

China has been courting foreign investors for projects in its western regions as a matter of policy for more than a decade. Dell would not say what sort of incentives it was offered to construct new facilities in Chengdu.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell already employs about 6,000 people in China, spread among manufacturing plants and other operations in the southeastern city of Xiamen, a product design and engineering center in Shanghai and a service center in Dalian, a city east of Beijing. It also contracts with electronics manufacturers in the country.

Over the next decade, the company said it expects to spend about $100 billion on China operations. It spent $23 billion in China in 2009.

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province and an economic center of Western China, and is already home to manufacturing plants run by such high-tech global companies as Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and Nokia Corp.

Dell's expansion into Western China comes as the company continues to fight back increasingly fierce competition from Asian computer makers. It's locked in a battle with Taiwan's Acer Inc. for the title of second-largest PC maker, behind global leader Hewlett-Packard Co.; China's Lenovo is hot on their heels.”