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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MichaelA who wrote (121044)	4/28/1999 7:59:00 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 176388

Dell Website Targets Latin America (04/28/99, 6:01 p.m. ET) By Reuters MIAMI -- Dell Computer, which already makes 25 percent of its sales online, said Wednesday that it expects to boost business in Latin America with what it called the first online computer company "store" targeting the region. The site, www.dell.com/la, is in Spanish, with prices given in U.S. dollars. Users use pull-down menus to choose products and design their systems. Customers can pay for their purchases using credit cards and use the site to track the progress of their orders. "The Internet is growing rapidly in Latin America," Roberto Martinez, director of Dell's Home and Small Business Division for Latin America, said in an interview before the company announced its new site. "We have very high expectations for the store," he said. Industry analysts estimate that 20 percent of PCs in Latin America are connected to the Internet, well below the worldwide level of 48 percent, Martinez said. But the Internet growth rate in the region is expected to outpace that of every other continent in the coming years. In 1998, there were 5.73 million Internet users in Latin America, a number that is supposed to jump to 8.54 million by the end of 1999, according to International Data Corp. figures cited by Dell. Martinez said Dell ran a pilot version of its new site from January until early April and, without advertising or marketing, sold $1.5 million in systems. "We think that proves that people [in Latin America] are as willing to buy systems on the Internet as they are in the U.S. and Europe," he said. "On a worldwide basis, today we are selling about $14 million a day through our online stores." Martinez would not say how much of Dell's business comes from Latin America, citing company policy. "It's a very important market for us and growing very rapidly," he said. Dell already operates 44 "online store" websites in 21 languages for 44 countries. "As far as we know, and we've checked, we are the first to have a pan-regional store in Spanish," he said. Martinez also said Dell intends to open a Portuguese-language online store for Brazil's market by the end of this year. Dell has said it wants to do 50 percent of its business globally online by the end of 2000.