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You can tell Dell’s (DELL) earnings announcement is coming soon when Business Week starts publishing its anti-Dell articles. You can almost set your clock by them. This time, Business Week tells us that Dell is floundering in China.

You couldn't blame Michael S. Dell for sounding a little bit smug about his company's prospects in China during a cocktail party for analysts in Austin, Tex., last April. Dell's market share in Asia was growing fast, and it looked as if its formula of selling PCs directly to customers over the Internet and phone was catching on just as it had in the U.S.

"Demand for our products and services in China is tremendous," he said, adding that "99% of the economic value in China is in the large metro areas" where Dell (DELL) was concentrating its efforts.

All of a sudden, Dell's strategy in Asia is looking a little shaky. Third-quarter numbers released by tech market researcher IDC show Dell's market share for Asia, excluding mature Japan, dropped by a full point, to 7.8%. Then, on Oct. 25, the company announced that the co-president of its Chinese operations, Foo Piau Phang, had "chosen to retire."

Please. Dell has an incredibly strong business in China. Four years ago, Dell held just 5% of the Chinese market. Today, the company has 4,500 employees there and it announced plans to build a second plant in China. Japan is Dell’s third-largest market. China is fourth.

RURAL FREEZE. What's happening to Dell's march on Asia? The company won't talk -- it's in the quiet period before its Nov. 10 third-quarter earnings announcement. But there's plenty of evidence suggesting it's out of sync with shifting market conditions in fast-growing China. While Dell has focused on large business and government customers in the country's major cities, demand is emerging elsewhere -- in hundreds of smaller cities, where Dell doesn't sell as effectively as its rivals and where even some business customers want to see products before they buy.

That's where competitors Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and Founder have been selling briskly through retail shops. Says HP Executive Vice-President Ann Livermore: "You have to wonder, how well does the direct model work in the hinterland?" HP has invested heavily in hiring staffers and recruiting retailers in secondary Chinese and Indian cities.

The China setback is just the latest in a string of recent disappointments for Dell. Since the Round Rock (Tex.) company missed its second-quarter revenue target, its stock price, which peaked at $42 a share in July, has sunk to less than $32. A survey by the University of Michigan recently showed a decline in Dell's customer-satisfaction rating. Also, the company was embarrassed in China in May after the publication of an e-mail from a Dell salesman criticizing the Chinese government -- a key Dell customer.

An HP executive questioning Dell’s business model? I’m sorry, but which company is laying off 15,000 employees? Does anyone know? Bueller? Anyone?

As far as its revenue miss, Dell barely missed. The stock hasn’t done well lately (and that’s why I think it’s a great buy), but it’s still well ahead of the market over the last four years. The customer satisfaction issue is important, but the survey made it clear that customers are upset with Dell’s customer service, not the products. In other words, this is a problem that can be fixed.

The article is cobbling together negative and slightly negative news and making it appear that there’s some large trend in play. The moral of the story is always the same. Dell can’t maintain its margins. Lower-cost competitors are under-pricing it, and Dell is losing market share. Just last week, we learned that Dell is still #1 and it’s slightly increasing its market share.

We'll find out more on November 10.

Posted by edelfenbein at October 27, 2005 12:43 PM