Dell Inc has teamed up with China’s largest mobile operator to develop a smartphone, a spokeswoman for China Mobile (中國移動) said yesterday, in a deal that would mark the US computer giant’s debut in the market.
The Dell device will support China Mobile’s online application store Mobile Market, a Web site allowing the company’s smartphone users to download applications for mobile phones, the spokeswoman said.
The online store, unveiled on Monday, currently supports 10 smartphone models, including handsets from Nokia Corp, Samsung Electronics Co, LG Electronics Co, Dopod International Corp (多普達) and Dell, the spokeswoman said, adding it “will definitely support more brands in future.”
A Beijing-based spokeswoman for Dell China said she could not give any further details about the smartphone, or say when it would be ready for purchase.
A Dell smartphone could help the PC maker tap into China’s burgeoning 3G market.
China Mobile, tasked with operating a 3G network based on the nation’s TD-SCDMA technology, had more than 493 million subscribers in the world’s largest mobile market as of the end of June.
The company’s smaller rival, China Unicom (中國聯通), is in talks with Apple Inc about selling the iPhone in China.
China’s Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), the world’s fourth-largest maker of personal computers, is reportedly developing the oPhone, an iPhone lookalike.
Meanwhile, Apple has told the European Commission that widely reported cases of exploding iPhones should be treated as “isolated incidents,” officials in Brussels said Tuesday.
Apple is investigating possible causes but insists that there are no general problems with its best-selling product, said a commission spokeswoman, Helen Kearns.
The EU’s executive arm in Brussels, which is responsible for overseeing the safety of consumer products sold inside the bloc, had last week asked Apple for clarifications following reports of at least three iPhones or iPod music players overheating and exploding in France and the UK.
In one such incident, a teenager in Aix-en-Provence, France, reportedly sustained injuries to an eye.
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