KUALA LUMPUR--Computer giant Dell will open its second Asia Pacific Customer Center (APCC), a PC manufacturing plant, in March, to cope with the growing demand for PCs in high growth markets like China and India.
The new plant is located in the Prai Industrial Estate in the northern state of Penang, Malaysia.
Dell also plans to hire an additional 600 people for the new plant, APCC managing director Simon Wong said. The Dell workforce in Malaysia is currently about 1,600.
He said the question of staff cuts has been ruled out in the case of Dell. Just recently, rival PC maker Gateway was forced to cut 3,000 jobs worldwide, citing higher costs of making computers and a weakening consumer market.
"The fact that we are opening a new manufacturing plant and hiring new people is an indication of our resolve to expand operations," Wong told reporters Monday.
He said the new center would be able to produce more than twice the capacity of the first plant which was set up in 1995. The latter currently produces about a million units a year, with the three millionth unit to be shipped out within the next sixty days.
"The new plant has about one and a half times more usable floor space compared to the original plant and is located on a 46-acre site on the mainland district of Prai," he said.
Dell's APCC supplies PC, laptops and servers to the Asia Pacific region including Japan, China, India, Korea, Australia. Wong said Asia Pacific made up seven percent of Dell's global revenue for last quarter of about US$13 billion.
On the local front, Wong said according to International Data Corporation (IDC) statistics, as of September 30th, 173, 906 PCs were sold in Malaysia, a 23.5 percent increase from the previous year.
"There is also a 10 percent hike in these numbers, quarter to quarter," he said adding a new manufacturing plant was needed as "we are now stretched to the limit."
However, Wong did not disclose the quantum of investment Dell poured into the second APCC.
The latest Dell plant will initially manufacture laptops exclusively for the local and export markets before producing desktops and servers later in the year. Bluetooth-equipped laptops are also set to be manufactured at the new plant later this year, Wong added.
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